The Last Duel (2021)

Directed by: Ridley Scott | 153 minutes | action, drama | Actors: Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer, Harriet Walter, Ben Affleck, Alex Lawther, Marton Csokas, WIlliam Houston, Oliver Cotton, Aurélien Lorgnier, Nathaniel Parker, Tallulah Haddon, Bryony Hannah, Iain Pirie, Daniel Horn, Michael McElhatton, Sam Hazeldine

‘The Last Duel’ by director Ridley Scott throws the viewer back to fourteenth-century France, or at least a Hollywood version of it. There is a lot of gunfire on location in the Dordogne and the world famous American actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck parade around numerous castles in late medieval fashion with slightly too tightly defined facial hair. In addition, the star actors use no nonsense tongues in English that pass for old French. ‘The Last Duel’ therefore skims dangerously along a wafer-thin line with a deadly serious tone on the one hand and pleasant kitsch on the other. The skill of director Scott often keeps things in balance. With this Scott delivers a well-meant knight’s blockbuster with extremely gory violence (“Game of Thrones” level), sometimes excessive exposition and above all a ruthless message about male-female relations in France of yesteryear.

The story in ‘The Last Duel’ revolves around a historic trial from the fourteenth century, previously exposed by Eric Jaeger in the book ‘The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial by Combat in Medieval France’ (2004). Marguerite de Carrouges, played strong and nuanced by Jodie Comer (“Killing Eve”, 2018- ), accuses squire Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) of rape. Since sexual abuse at the time is not so much something Le Gris does to Marguerite, but that Le Gris may have damaged the property of her husband, the Norman knight Jean Carrouges (Matt Damon), makes it all the more uncomfortable for the modern audience. In all sorts of ways, the slippery Le Gris, who in the film sincerely believes that the act was out of love, tries to evade charges. Ultimately, a very public feud of national proportions culminates in a violent apotheosis between the old war buddies. Not only is Marguerite’s honor at stake, but also the pride of the two ruffs.

Damon and Affleck wanted to work with director Scott Jaeger to translate historical novel onto the big screen. Nicole Holofcener, who has worked as a director on the TV series “Sex and the City” (1998-2004) and “Orange is the New Black” (2013-19), among others, came on board for this. Perhaps the gentlemen expected her expertise in TV series with a strong female perspective to give ‘The Last Duel’ more legitimacy, such as the recent role of Phoebe Waller-Bridge on ‘No Time to Die’ (2021). In addition, director Scott modeled the story structure on Akira Kurosawa’s Japanese classic ‘Rashomon’ (1950). As in Kurosawa’s film, ‘The Last Duel’ shows the main events from the perspective of several characters. So you get the chapter Jean de Carrouges, then that of Le Gris and finally of Marguerite. Just as it is Jodie Comer’s turn, ‘The Last Duel’ unfortunately shows some metal fatigue (‘Rashomon’ is an hour shorter). Moreover, looming over this production is the uncomfortable question of whether a medieval rape case can say anything about current male-female relations and sexual mores?

The penultimate film from director Scott ‘All the Money in the World’ (2017) was quite controversial. Almost before the film was finished, Scott replaced the quickly disgraced Kevin Spacey with Christopher Plummer for a major supporting role. At the time, Spacey was accused of sexual abuse in multiple cases and he was one of the first big Hollywood names in the Me Too era to leave the field. In this context, you’d say that following up with ‘The Last Duel’ is extra spicy. Is Scott trying to deal with the sexual mores in Hollywood with this? Or is ‘The Last Duel’ more revisionism of archaic Hollywood knight spectacles such as ‘El Cid’ (Anthony Mann, 1961) in which Charlton Heston takes on the Moors as the righteous Castilian Don Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar?

However, if you make it to the final of ‘The Last Duel’, Scott is going to have a hard time looking into his cards. This whole knighthood is an outdated idea and not only monstrous for women, because this strongly patriarchal and hierarchical society also ruined the men. Despite the ambivalence and subjectivity of the film’s shifting perspective, Sir Ridley Scott unmistakably sided with the countless invisible women in history and not with noble knights. But now imagine if Dame Jane Campion, from the likes of ‘The Piano’ (1993) and ‘In the Cut’ (2003), and Jodie Comer had been in charge instead of the ‘Good Will Hunting’ (1997) ) male clique.