I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting from the trailer for The Duchess starring Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Simon McBurney, Dominic Cooper and Charlotte Rampling.

The film tells the story of the eighteenth century Duchess of Devonshire who was both adored and scorned publicly for her political and public lives.

I wish people would stop making all these comparisons to Princess Diana in the story. Regardless of that you would think that the story could promise a great deal with that blurb, but watch the trailer and you're treated to a simple case of a woman caught between an arranged marriage, as they were in those days and circles, and someone she shares a passion and love with.

As far as I understand affairs were commonplace, even having an affair of some length outside of the marriage, the two were treated as separate things.

However none of this is explored in the trailer for The Duchess and what we see is a bosom heaving costume drama with a simple romance drama thrown in there. It looks more like a late afternoon television film, it hardly looks as though it will stretch Keira Knightley's acting.

The trailer is over at YouTube through Empire.