Celebrity jeopardy

GEORGIANA Spencer represented many things to 18^th-century British society. The Duchess of Devonshire was a fashion plate, a celebrity with her own sketch-artist paparazzi, an influential political booster, a target of gossip and a victim of scandal. She was, according to biographer Amanda Foreman, the Princess Diana of her day.

Her identity as a progenitor of the "It-girl" image -- which The Duchess star Keira Knightley easily inhabits during the duchess's rise to fame -- takes a back seat to proto-feminist issues in director Saul Dibb's hands, swaying the emphasis towards melodrama rather than period spectacle. This takes nothing away from the exquisite production, costume and three-foot-tall wig designs captured by cinematographer Gyala Pados (Kontrol), but it does result in a slow-as-molasses pacing.

Dibb and screenwriting collaborators Jeffrey Hatcher (Casanova) and Anders Thomas Jensen (After the Wedding) kick things off with the moment when the duke (Ralph Fiennes) proposes to the 17-year-old daughter of the first Earl Spencer by proxy. Georgiana's mother (Charlotte Rampling) gives her the news, which she enthusiastically accepts despite having only met the duke twice. Their wedding scene foreshadows the relationship: They bow to each other without meeting eyes, then turn forward with the duke resolutely looking straight ahead and the duchess-to-be warily eyeing her bridegroom with a side glance.

Mom knew all about the first night in the bedroom but didn't seem to prepare Georgiana for the political and biological purposes of her union. Lady Spencer promised Georgiana would produce male offspring, which she fails to do on the first two tries. The Duke loves his dogs more than Georgiana, and doesn't have much affection to spare despite regularly gratifying himself with affairs. Women mystify him when he considers them at all. "You have many ways of expressing yourselves," he says to Georgianna, who replies with restraint, "We just have hats and dresses."

The couple does have some sort of unspoken understanding that allows her freedoms such as using her fame to publicly and prominently support the Whig party -- unprecedented for a woman of her time. The understanding gets complicated when the duke's roving eye falls on the duchess's live-in best friend, Lady Elizabeth Foster (Hayley Atwill) and the duchess herself falls for passionate, aspiring politician Charles Grey (Dominic Cooper). The duke can understand canoodling, but draws the line when he finds out the duchess's affair is making the rounds on the scandal circuit. It could cause him to lose face, which could upend the social order and disgrace England itself.

Dibb's ambition leads the film on a course that transcends the well-worn path of portraying gender imbalance during the Age of Enlightenment through the lens of 20^th-century hindsight, which compensates at times for the tedious pacing. Georgianna doesn't debate; she acts. Fiennes's duke doesn't just personify the system -- he subtly reveals his distaste for being a prisoner of his own privilege, a slave to destiny and social order. But unlike his wife, he accepts his fate, bottling up his discontent as the duchess's spirit never stops struggling with hers.

Knightley effortlessly draws on her own charisma to inhabit her role. The sharp angles of her face express the determination the Duchess needed to get her through the days when designer fashion wasn't enough of an escape, when a husband was legally entitled to discipline his wife with a stick as long as it was no thicker than a thumb. It's safe to say it takes an It-girl to play an It-girl, but imagining any other actress besides Knightley tackling the role of Georgianna is like visualizing anyone other than Diana Spencer becoming the ninth Princess of Wales.