If someone demands a duel, at minimum they are incredibly stubborn and brittle. The aggrieved party feels the normal channels of justice are inadequate, so they demand a vulgar public display where honor can be restored, although the public may not see it that way. The Last Duel, the new medieval drama from director Ridley Scott, starts with this understanding of the outdated practice, then complicates it. The film is more than a critique of fragile men, but an entire system where pride and honor leave no room for anyone else to have self-determination – particularly women. That is not to say this film is a dry, didactic exercise. Led by strong performances, the characters have passion, personalities, even irony. More importantly, the cleverly-constructed screenplay streamlines its themes with the drama, so when the duel finally arrives, its outcome has genuine stakes.
The film is broken into three chapters, and the first one is called “The Truth According to Jean de Carrouges.” Matt Damon is convincing as Jean, a knight in fourteenth-century France who is as brave as he is humorless. He heroically leads several battles – another opportunity for Scott to depict the rushed mayhem of war – except the battlefield does not solve the perils of domestic life. Owing substantial debts to the King, Jean’s friend Jacques Le Gris (a brutish, aloof Adam Driver) comes calling. Jacques enjoys popularity at court that Jean does not, as he is a close friend and confidante to the popular Count Pierre d’Alençon (a hilarious, scene-chewing Ben Affleck). This shared history leads to a simmering rivalry that comes to a head when Jean marries the beautiful Marguerite (Jodie Comer). Their devotion seems real, so when Jean learns Jacques raped Marguerite while he was away in Paris, he flies into a rage. Believing the lower courts are too corrupt, he sees a duel as his only recourse.
That is just one version of what happens. The next two chapters show the events from Jacques and Marguerite, respectively, with her providing the truest account. According to Jacques, Jean is an oafish loser and Marguerite’s repeated cries for help were all part of the “normal” dance of seduction (one storytelling masterstroke is how Scott, even during Jacques’ point of view, depicts the rape unambiguously). Marguerite’s account is even more damning, revealing how both Jean and Jacques are monstrous, nursing their egos without any thought about how anyone – especially Marguerite – must feel.
Like Kurosawa’s Rashomon, an inevitable point of comparison, the variations of each chapter are the most revealing. Jean focuses on his sense of honor, for example, while Jacques thinks he is above such things thanks to his good looks, education, and apparent “love” for Marguerite. Her account, on the other hand, tells us all the perceived slights between Jean and Jacques are immaterial. What ultimately matters is the brutal nature of the attack, and how Jean never once considers how the duel might affect her (if Jean loses, then Marguerite lied before God, a capital offense). Comer does not have a lot of dialogue in the first two chapters, with her physical acting serving as a quasi-fantasy in the eyes of Jean/Jacques, so her firm performance in the last chapter is where the film finds its moral center.
Knights and chivalrous conduct usually make for romantic films – just look at The Green Knight – except this film’s sensibility is too modern for that. Screenwriters Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Nicole Holofcener regard the characters with a withering gaze. There is no doubt Holofcener’s contribution are key to the film’s success, since Affleck and Damon lack the imagination for the cruel indignities women like Marguerite and countless others must endure (there is a conversation between her and Jean’s mother (Harriet Walter) that discusses rape culture in a way that normally eludes Hollywood). Each additional detail makes the male characters seem more immature and grotesque, until rather surprisingly, their feats of strength matter more than we might expect. Scott films the duel with frank violence, not unlike Black Hawk Down and Kingdom of Heaven, and audience bloodlust is more palpable because of how Marguerite’s desperation informs the action.
Ridley Scott’s first film was The Duelists, another historical drama from 1977. That film and The Last Duel are protracted sagas in historical France, except the earlier one focuses primarily on a single man’s inflexible sense of outrage. The Last Duel is the more mature film, since it recognizes how the will of one man has consequences far beyond his limited imagination. This film has all the hallmarks of a familiar sword-driven epic. There are likable stars, handsome production values, and thrilling action sequences. Behind all that violence and the familiar pedigree, however, is a subversive film that may shock viewers who are merely amused by Matt Damon in a mullet. This is not a “message” movie, but it has something to say.
Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios
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