The Duchess
Paramount Vantage | Release Date: September 19, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
62
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
11
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
This is not one of those delightful movies based on a Jane Austen novel. It is about hard realists, constrained in a stifling system and using whatever weapons they can command. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Thoroughly populist and middlebrow, full of all the high wigs, thick powder, perfect diction, and straightforward dialogue that define bodice-ripping prestige pictures about silently suffering souls. Read full review
80
TimeRichard Schickel
The players are uniformly good, but a special word must be said for Fiennes, whose portrayal of physical awkwardness and painful taciturnity never begs either for laughs or for sympathy. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Even surrounded by all this quality work, Ralph Fiennes, who plays William Cavendish, the fifth duke of Devonshire, the most powerful man in England next to the king, walks off with the picture. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
An uncommonly well-crafted historical feminist tearjerker--both anti-patriarchal and a monument to motherhood. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
This is scandal-mongering fun that also lays bare the deforming power of the male aristocracy. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Fiennes speaks with his body what the script cannot formulate about what it's like to be a man apart. The actor creates particulars of time, space, class, and personality with one crook of a finger, one twist of a wrist. I call that nobility of craft; he's the actors' prince. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
It's Knightley who makes The Duchess a royal treat. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Princess Diana's antecedent, both genetically and figuratively, was a beautiful and glamorous duchess named Georgiana Spencer. Like her descendant, her charm and vivacity captivated England. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
perfectly serviceable costume drama. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
While I much liked The Duchess, this portrait feels unfinished. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
It tells the amazing, but mostly true, story of a late-18th century aristocrat who made an indelible mark on English society akin to that of her direct descendant, Lady Diana. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
If you're fond of wigs, you may be in heaven. If you're more interested in Whigs, you may wish the movie had dug deeper under the lovely powdered surface of Lady Georgiana Spencer. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Keira Knightley is a terrific choice to play the 18th century socialite. Read full review
70
SalonStephanie Zacharek
tThere's life at the center of The Duchess, in the form of Keira Knightley. She carries the weight of the movie around her effortlessly. Read full review
70
NewsweekDavid Ansen
For a number of reasons The Duchess isn't all it could have been. It's fun, but falls short of fabulous. Read full review
67
Seattle Post-IntelligencerPaula Nechak
Provided you don't take it seriously, it makes for an addictively entertaining diversion that's as hard to stop watching as the books are to stop reading. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
Ultimately, though, it's unfortunate that the movie tries to make so many oblique comparisons to more modern tragedy (paparazzi with sketchbooks; yes, we get it!), since Georgiana's life seems fascinating enough on its own. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
As for true-love Charles, he would ascend to the Prime Minister's office, and then rise again to even greater heights: They named the tea after him. Indeed, that may be the smartest way to see this flick, curled up on your sofa with a cup of Earl Grey -- just make sure it's as decaffeinated as what you're watching. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneTasha Robinson
Taken in isolation from the unsatisfying story, the performances are powerful--Knightley’s vivacious, wounded romantic does a great deal to carry the film on sheer personality, while Fiennes is a subtle master at projecting banked menace through his seeming detached ennui. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Fans of period drama will find things to like about The Duchess; it's not as ludicrous as "The Other Boleyn Girl," for instance, and it's not overly long or ponderous. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
At a certain point, The Duchess stops attending to the topiary and becomes a women's melodrama instead. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin Chang
A serviceable picture that offers all the sumptuous visual pleasures of a historical costume drama, yet little in the way of actual history. Read full review
60
NPRBob Mondello
Director Saul Dibb, presumably knowing that this is pretty standard stuff for a costume epic, occupies us not just with the usual visuals -- of his star drifting through exquisitely furnished estates, draped in rich silks and brocades -- but also with some intriguingly offbeat sights. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
A rousing period drama with all the familiar trimmings: gorgeous costumes, palatial settings and romantic intrigue. Read full review
60
Washington PostJohn Anderson
It's too bad there's not more substance to The Duchess, because there's lots of acting and, as is required of a Brit-styled period piece, lushness galore. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
It has impeccable production values but feels like a "Masterpiece Theater" production of a Harlequin romance novel. Read full review
50
Village VoiceElla Taylor
As a tale of mature self-sacrifice, the movie would be almost unbearably moving were it not for Knightley's insubstantial performance, which allows her to be fatally upstaged by Ralph Fiennes. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
The problem isn't the history that the filmmakers leave in, but how much they leave out. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorRobert Koehler
A lumbering number that takes its identity as a costume drama quite literally. Read full review
40
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
An overstuffed, intellectually underbaked portrait of a poor little rich girl. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Instead of scintillation, the movie gives us a succession of discrete set pieces, as if the action takes place in rooms but not in the halls connecting them. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
It’s a curiously inert, workmanlike production: a whole lot of pomp and incircumstance. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle Smith
Everything is predictable three scenes in advance, and it's all stale, stuck, stolid. Read full review
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