Ridley Scott recently blamed the box office failure of The Last Duel on millennials for being too glued to their phone screens. Whether or not that truly is the case, it’s a shame that The Last Duel didn’t get as much attention as it should have. While Scott has had his share of misfires, even when we just consider his period pieces, The Last Duel is one of his finest films in recent years.
The film follows three points of view on the relationship between two French squires, Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) and Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver). Jacques is favored by their new lord, Count Pierre d’Alençon (Ben Affleck), who gives him lands and titles that were originally owed to Jean. Jean marries a beautiful wife, Margueritte (Jodie Comer), and goes off to fight in wars and invasions to pay off his debts. After he returns from business in Paris, Margueritte reveals she was raped by Le Gris when she was alone. Although the two of them seek justice, Pierre dismisses their claims, forcing Jean to bring the matter to the King’s court. The King allows Jean to battle Jacques in a duel to the death to prove that his wife is telling the truth.
The show follows a narrative structure made famous by Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, showing the subtle differences between how characters see themselves and their interactions with others. Jean imagines himself as a gallant knight who is wronged by his lord as well as his erstwhile friend. He dotes on his wife and is horrified to learn about her assault. Yet, when we see Jacques’ perspective, we see a charming debonair who is so entrenched in the social mores of his time that he writes off the resistance he meets from Margueritte as the ‘usual’ amount of reluctance women exhibit during intercourse.
The last perspective is Margueritte’s, and this is when the movie’s feminist sensibilities come out in full force. Margueritte leads a harried existence, dutifully toiling away as the lady of Jean’s estate, taking barbs from her mother-in-law about not being able to give birth to any children yet and the rough way Jean treats her. The assault is recreated with subtle but important differences, and when Jean learns of it, his immediate reaction is that Jacques keeps wronging him, not his wife.
Adapted from a book by Eric Jager by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, The Last Duel is driven by its core cast’s performances.
Jodie Comer is the most affecting out of the three, showing a quiet resilience and determination to exert as much agency as possible in a time where women’s fates were mostly out of their hands. Adam Driver’s Jacques is, by no means, a saint, but he believes his innocence so confidently that he maintains it until the bitter end. Matt Damon plays more of a straight man driven by honor, a certain degree of pettiness, and churlishness. Ben Affleck’s Pierre is a welcome surprise as the philandering lord who dotes on Jacques.
The three perspectives intertwine in the climactic duel which is every bit as brutal and cinematic as you would expect from the director of Gladiator. It’s a satisfying conclusion to the story, although the extenuating circumstances that led to the duel in the first place are, of course, still at large.
The Last Duel suffers from being a mostly male-centric story despite being about a woman seeking justice. Still, it’s a departure from the string of franchise movies that dominate the box office. That it flopped is unfortunate, but hopefully, people will discover it through video on demand and streaming.
