The Duchess is a far cry from the modern-day crimes and prejudices of his so-solid debut Bullet Boy. But director Saul Dibb capably handles the change to a more genteel time and place.
 
It also puts Keira Knightley right where she belongs, drifting around stately homes in period dress, a hundred miles from the nearest stuntman.
 
We join the party in 1774 as feisty Georgiana is married off to aloof Duke William Cavendish (Fiennes) in an arrangement brokered by her mother (Charlotte Rampling).
 
The young Duchess is soon society’s hostess with the mostest, her intellect and eye for style going down a treat with playwrights, politicians and fashion-conscious ladies everywhere.
 
This popularity is not matched at home, where her cold fish of a husband wants nothing from her but a male heir. For companionship he has his dogs; for carnal pleasure - well, that’s what servants are for.
 
Making no secret of his adultery, the Duke continues to berate Georgiana for denying him a son, yet expects her to raise his illegitimate daughter alongside their own two girls.
 
The ultimate betrayal comes when she catches her best friend Lady Bess Foster (Atwell) with her husband… who adds insult to injury by making her his live-in mistress.
 
If ever there was a time to act on her feelings for her politically ambitious soulmate Charles Grey (Cooper, The History Boys), this must be it. Idealistic, passionate and energetic, he is everything that her husband is not.
 
But if she chooses him, the Duke guarantees that she will lose her position, her reputation and her children.
 
Despite glossing over Georgiana’s well-documented gambling addiction (she allegedly died with huge debts), the historical detail is quite sound. The ménage-a-trois between the Cavendishes and Lady Bess sounds racy even by today’s standards, but the situation actually went on for 20 years.
 
But as you’d expect, it’s all done in the best possible taste.
 
Having said that, plastering the trailer with images of Princess Di is a pretty crass marketing ploy - however interesting it may be to compare two women separated by 200 years on the same family tree.
 
And it’s certainly not for anyone who gets Keira-sick. But while she may hog the screen, the prettily prognathic one suffers her blue-blooded indignities quite convincingly. Much credit for that should go to Fiennes who steers all sympathies her way by making the Duke such a splendidly miserable cad.
 
Yet there is little to distinguish this adaptation of Amanda Foreman’s Whitbread Prize-winning biography from any other competently executed period piece.
 
From ballrooms to bedrooms, we’ve seen it all before. And while familiarity doesn’t necessarily breed contempt, it does have a habit of nudging the snooze button.
 
Still, it’s just the sort of thing your nan would enjoy with her Sunday cuppa. Earl Grey of course.

Elliott Noble