Cinemas - starting this week - 5/9/08

Sep 5 2008 by Michael Green, Chester Chronicle

It will be difficult for anyone familiar with recent history not to see echoes of Diana, Princess of Wales throughout this retelling of a forgotten 18th century aristocratic scandal.

Keira Knightley may continue to play it safe but there are few stars around at the moment who can handle restrained suffering with such class.

Here she plays the title role of 19-year-old Georgiana, a fun-loving, intelligent young woman who ends up in what turns out to be a loveless marriage with the older Duke of Devonshire, played with characteristic elegance by Ralph Fiennes.

But Georgiana refused to allow this to prevent her from raising the equivalent of royal hell with her extravagant partying lifestyle which shocked the more refined society in which she moved.

Meanwhile, though, hubby decides to have an affair with Georgiana’s best friend and it is through such events that you come to realise that while the heroine may seem like a frivolous party animal, she has an existence free of genuineaffection.

This could have been an inconsequential historical confection along the lines of The Tudors but it becomes a more thoughtful, intelligent piece of work in the hands of director Saul Dibb whose only previous film was the gritty, hard-hitting Bullet Boy.

STAR RATING: ***