Movie Review: The Duchess

The cinched corsets, the mountains of upswept hair, the richly textured, intricately detailed costumes. Sure, "The Duchess" is a lavish exercise in style over substance, but it's a well-crafted, superbly acted one.

Keira Knightley brings her usual bright energy and sly charm to the role of Georgiana Spencer, the Duchess of Devonshire, and she manages to find the subversive humor within the unassuming, artistically solid direction from Saul Dibb. Unsurprisingly, the star of "Pride & Prejudice" and "Atonement" seems perfectly comfortable in yet another period piece; this one begins in 1774 England, when Georgiana was a 17-year-old bride.

But the filmmakers - and the movie's marketing machine - are obviously trying hard to make the picture seem contemporary by pushing the idea that Georgiana was the first "It Girl," with her elaborate parties and influential fashion sense. It also doesn't hurt their argument that she was an ancestor of Princess Diana, who similarly was trapped in a loveless royal marriage and found herself the topic of endless gossip. It's a smart tactic: Considering our all-consuming obsession with celebrity, such a connection, unfortunately, doesn't seem too tenuous.

Working from the 1998 biography "Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire" by Amanda Foreman, Dibb and fellow screenwriters Jeffrey Hatcher and Anders Thomas Jensen play up Georgiana's glamour and the tragically soapy elements of her life, all of which makes for compelling viewing.

PG-13 (sexual content, brief nudity and adult themes); 105 minutes