The main problem with The Duchess is that it offers up nothing we haven’t seen before. It is beautiful to look at, filled with solid performances and never overstays its welcome, but it is also dramatically over-familiar to the point of being cliché, and by the time it was over I almost couldn’t remember a single thing about it.

Keira Knightley (left) in Focus Features' The Duchess

The film follows the travails of 18th century aristocrat Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (Keira Knightley) and her horrific marriage to the Duke (Ralph Fiennes), a man over twice her age and only interested in the girl for her ability to hopefully deliver him a son. While she becomes a paragon of fashion and taste, beloved by the people and able to influence the political machinations of all around her circle, her husband could l care less, his coldly distancing attitude driving a stake through the woman’s heart so strong it just about splits it in two.

Based on the book by Amanda Foreman, as period melodramas go this one should be a doozey. You’ve got fabulous hairdos, magnificent costumes, cleavage-busting bodices and enough palace-level intrigue to fill half a dozen Harlequin romance novels. This should be a movie that moves like lightening and doesn’t skimp on the sex, lies or parchment, and when it’s all said and done women should be swooning in the aisles and men should be grabbing them off the ground with passionate embraces so strong the very world should crumble in lustful vigor right beside them.

Politically incorrect hyperbole aside, the bottom line is that this is the type of tale that should make a person sweat bullets as they become more and more enraptured by the stories being spun. Instead, for all the movie’s many strengths (and there are plenty of them) the opposite unfortunately takes place. The emotional core is shockingly inert, the drama virtually nonexistent. This is a film that looks the look but for whatever reason cannot walk the walk, the only thing moving about any of it the sheer fact so much time and effort has been spent on something so blandly insignificant.

In fairness, both Knightley and Fiennes are quite good in their respective roles, while on a technical level just about everything clicks just about perfectly. This is as fantastically realized a picture as any I’ve seen this year, cinematographer Gyula Pados (Evening), production designer Michael Carlin (In Bruges), composer Rachel Portman (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2) and costume designer Michael O'Connor (Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day) all delivering Oscar-caliber work deserving of acclaim.

I just wish the picture didn’t feel so tiredly familiar and, at times at least, so second rate. I never got a feeling as to why the British populace fell so madly in love with Georgiana, never got an understanding as to why politicians tumbled all over themselves to call her their friend. Worse than that, though, is the fact the marriage between her and the Duke just felt like so much British Period Melodrama 101, and when “Masterpiece Theater” or A&E can do all this far better then you can than maybe that’s a hint to pack one’s bags and call it a day. 

Reading back, some of this seems a bit harsh. I mean, it isn’t like The Duchess crashes, burns and falls all over itself like The Other Boleyn Girl did quite so astonishingly earlier this year. Still, much like that feature film director Saul Dibb (Bullet Boy) and company just can’t quite rise to the occasion, and while this isn’t quite the royal failure it was this one still commits enough sins of incompetent storytelling to be labeled a disappointment. Which trait is worse is a decision I leave up to you.

Film Rating: êê (out of 4) 

Additional Links:

-  The Duchess Theatrical Trailer