The Duchess: too skinny
(Doodle drawn while waiting for my backup to finish, sorry if it’s rather offhand! Just fooling around with Photoshop again!)
Okay, I know this movie, The Duchess, was not meant at all to be historically accurate or informative, it being a chick-lit version of the life of the original Duchess of Devonshire (see what she really looked and lived like, here). So when a vision of beauty that modern viewers could relate to was called for, what better choice than someone who looks and acts like a fashion model? But really, aren’t models being advised to eat more these days?
This Duchess was rather painful to look at, not only because Keira Knightley’s acting ability has all the depth of one of the film’s posters, but also because she is just as thin! Her hollowed out cheeks, accentuated all the more with tons of rouge, made her look like an emaciated clown. When the Duke helps himeself to her more tenderly buxom maid, and then her succulent new friend, Lady Elizabeth Foster, I began to muse that perhaps he was simply seeking the solace of a warm, soft body underneath all the skirts and bustles.
The byline I keep hearing on NPR, which mentions “the secret story (...) of the courage inside a woman,” seems the more ridiculous when I wonder where inside her? In her stomach, shouting, “echo”? If anything, looking at the spectacle of The Duchess of Devonshire as played by Knightley, I did feel a pang of pity for the plight of womankind in her era, painted and propped up like helpless dolls, starved for love and recognition, and trivialized for posterity by this film.
Ralph Fiennes was excellent as the husband rendered nearly autistic by society’s expectations of men. And Hayley Atwell, as Lady Foster, certainly has a nice rack on her. An interesting factoid: Anna Wintour is apparently a descendent.
