Film Reviews by None

Never one to shy away from gritty or violent films, I watched this offering expecting a moving story that would captivate me. Instead I was bored and indifferent to a story that lacked any real substance and, instead, focused too much on protracted scenes of violence to compensate for the lack of credible story.

On paper it's hard to imagine this documentary series being of interest to anyone except historians. David Starkey's passion and almost immeasurable knowledge, however, shine through in his spectacularly descriptive narrative and turns what could have been quite a dull scholastic-feeling documentary into an addictive series that will leave you desperate for the next chapter.

A more eloquent, enthusiastic and articulate narrator you would be hard to find, and David Starkey's enthusiasm is addictive.

It's true that Keira Knightley pouts her way through this whole film but her performance as the extraordinary Duchess Georgiana of Devonshire is still remarkably good.

I thought this film would be moderately entertaining and it was more for its historic merit that I rented it. I was pleasantly surprised, then, that the script and plot weren't at all fatuous and that the story was told in a subjective way that lets the viewer make up his or her own mind about whether Georgiana was the English answer to Marie Antoinette: a privileged, vapid, aristocrat who had been handed enormous wealth on a plate, or a cuckolded woman who overcome almost insurmountable difficulties in her marriage to lead an inordinately difficult life under the thumb of a repressive, adulterous husband.

Definitely worth a viewing. I loved it.