Moved by "The Duchess"

They say you either love or hate Keira Knightley - but to me she is an enigma. One of those people you feel compelled to watch because she just doesn't seem quite real. And who you have to keep listening to get to the bottom of that weird clipped diction.

I started in a pretty negative frame of mind - in an empty cinema on a cold, wet Sunday afternoon that was almost empty apart from the very noisey pensioners who were sat immediately behind me. Just my luck!

I guess I was expecting a visual spectacular about self-obsessed and brattish aristocrats in a similar vein to Marie Antoinette - but set in London. But I was shocked to find that I was moved much more than a film has moved me for a long, long while.

It starts lightly enough - A young woman leaving behind girlish pursuits happily enough to enter marriage with a rich and highly regarded, powerful Duke. She naively thinks he loves her.

There are fabulous scenes of the London of yesteryear - mostly of its grandeur (with really fab shots of Somerset House). Although the scenes from the Regency crescent in Bath are just as captivating.

But reality soon bites when she has to take on his illigimate daughter as her own and feels the full weight of his scorn when she produces more daughters where he desperately wants a son and heir.

The indignity she suffers when forced to tolerate his mistress (and further illegimate sons) living in her home, sharing her every meal and trailing her and "their" husband to society events creates on screen drama that is almost palpable.

And as the plot unfolds with her desperate grasp towards her own happiness slapped back with impossibly cruel choices you genuinely feel her pain. You may loathe Knightley but she is - in this film - quite a brilliant actress.

Fiennes sums up the film when he makes a lighthearted comment about the children playing happily in the garden (in a scene reminiscent of the start when Keira is a fancy free laughing and flirting singleton): "Oh to have such freedom" or something similar. And you can see that he is as trapped as she is in the strictures of society.

Ralph Fiennes captured the essence of emotionally stunted, heir-and-appearances-obsessed but slightly dim Duke with aplomb. Every time he appeared on the screen, he owned it. Eclipsing Keira.

It is a deeply sad film. And the only glimmer of hope is that female friendship or sisterhood between women trapped in an awful situation could overcome and blossom against such impossible odds.

Some have suggested the film parallels the Charles-Diana story. But I thought the film offered much more drama, texture and depth than that shoddy affair.

So. A treat for the eyes. And a feast for the heart. I thought it was an excellent film and the emotions and thoughts it evoked in me will leave a lasting impact.