The Duchess

Keira Knightley plays an 18th-century duchess who challenges convention by responding to her husband’s infidelities with affairs of her own.

Keira Knightley plays Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, who confounds the unspoken conventions of 18th-centory society by responding to her husband’s infidelities with affairs of her own. Saul Dibb’s adaptation of Amanda Foreman’s biography gleefully plays up the contemporary comparisons to the life of Princess Diana, from the devious manipulations of a callous aristocracy to Georgiana’s extravagant fashion sense and canny defiance.

Lavishly photographed and adorned with Michael O’Connor’s award-winning haute couture costumery, The Duchess is a sumptuous and engaging period drama with a mischievous eye to the present.