Review: The Last Duel

Fact-based epic drama set in late 1300s France, with Matt Damon playing experienced knight and vassal Sir Jean de Carrouges, whose friendship with libertine vassal Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver), slowly starts to fray. It doesn’t help that Sir Jean feels that Jacques is favoured by their liege, the egotistical Pierre d’Alençon (Ben Affleck), but things completely fall apart when Sir Jean’s lovely wife Marguerite (Jodie Comer) accuses Jacques of raping her. Jacques denies it of course, and since Jacques is backed by Pierre d’Alençon, Sir Jean has to take things as high as the King of France. Eventually the matter is to be decided by a legally (and supposedly God-ly) sanctioned duel between the two men…deciding the truthfulness of a woman’s testimony.

 

This 2021 historically-based Medieval “Rashomon” from director Ridley Scott (“Alien”, “Black Rain”, “Gladiator”) is a near-miss. For the record Mr. Scott, I’m not a Millennial, and I don’t believe the box-office failure of your film has much to do with mobile phones and young people with no attention span. COVID, a dour subject, a 2 ½ hour length, and a plethora of choice for other forms of entertainment are more likely to be the issues there. As to the quality of the film, as I say, it doesn’t quite come off, despite some interesting elements.

 

Screenwriters Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Nicole Holofcener (the interesting “Every Secret Thing”) are to be commended for their attempt here at taking a Medieval story based on fact and taking it very seriously in what could’ve been a massive screw-up in the careers of Damon and Affleck given the #MeToo era we’re in, and Damon’s own media missteps in commenting on such matters. This could’ve gone horribly wrong, but at least in this aspect it doesn’t. I suspect Ms. Holofcener had a heck of a lot of influence in that, but nonetheless Affleck and Damon’s names are on the script too and the Oscar-winners (for “Good Will Hunting”) earn my respect there. Performance-wise…I think Mr. Scott shouldn’t have cast the two male screenwriters. Damon is the better of the two, and by having pretty much everyone in the film speak with an American (ish) accent, it saves us the horror of Damon attempting an English (or French, given the setting) accent at least. If you’ve ever heard an American D&D fan speak while playing the game, you’ll have some idea of what many of the actors here sound like. However, while a solid actor he’s not ideally cast here, especially for the character changes in the film’s ‘third’ version of events. I didn’t buy Damon’s performance in that section of the film at all. Ben Affleck is simply flagrantly miscast and comes off as far too ‘modern’ as a self-absorbed, libertine Pierre d’Alencon. Affleck is a Middle Ages Frenchman by way of a profane late 90s Boston-ite. He’s no stranger to playing smug, self-absorbed characters, but in this particular world…it’s deeply awkward to behold. Looking a bit like Terry Jones’ effete Herbert in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, Affleck’s annoyingly glib performance is extremely thin, caricatured, and snarky in an otherwise very dour film where any hint of levity just stands out like a sore thumb with a shit wig (though the wig reminds me of the kids from “Flowers in the Attic”, which may not be so ridiculous given the rather incestuous nature of the times).

 

Adam Driver is by far the best of the three American stars here, even if he overdoes things a touch as one of the few to attempt an English accent (It’s mostly spot on, but listen to the way he over-enunciates a word or two). That’s kind of odd, because the French here are at war with the British so the fact that the other actors don’t speak in English accents had some merit to it, but Driver is very clearly doing some form of English/British accent. Anyway, performance-wise the talented actor (who was the best thing in the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy) yet again impresses in the film’s most fascinating role. He’s a real scene-stealer as the ambitious libertine and accused rapist who has friends in high places. Jodie Comer did nothing for me in “Free Guy”, but here she’s terrific in a multi-faceted part. I know some people will frown upon a tale of misogyny being told but three men, but it’s done from a very clearly pro-women POV, whether that’s solely due to Holofcener or not, I can only guess but having a female co-writer will hopefully see people looking past their immediate impulse to frown. Don’t forget, Scott is the guy who directed “Thelma and Louise”, of all things. Yes, there’s probably more masculine emphasis in the film’s story than feminine, but I think that’s an unavoidable side effect of having a story in which two of the three main characters happen to be male, neither of whom come off terribly virtuous. Hell, the entire society depicted here comes off as insane. It’s a society where a duel is fought to decide legal innocence or guilt of a third party, assuming that God will let the guilty be punished somehow. Just think about how messed up that is.

 

Aside from the poor casting of Damon and especially Affleck, the film has narrative problems. The first half of the film presents things in overly choppy fashion. Part of this is likely intentional so that the three different versions of the same events don’t repeat themselves too much, but still the narrative doesn’t really flow very well early on. I also don’t think the second chapter is completely well thought out. The second chapter is meant to be from the Driver character’s point of view, yet he doesn’t actually portray himself favourably in it, which seems odd. ***** SPOILER WARNING ***** Yes, Comer comes across as flirty to some extent, but since Driver is already presented as a rather unpleasant libertine in the scenes leading up to the rape, it still comes across as non-consensual. There’s a bit more screaming and protestation in the third telling of the event, but even in this second one it’s clearly rape. What I believe I was meant to gather here (thinking about the film after the fact) was that from Driver’s POV, he was in love and since this is a male-dominated society, he felt he had every right to do what he did out of what he perceived as his ‘love’ for her. However, since he was already pretty much a black-hat villain in my eyes, I read his ‘love’ as disingenuous (possibly psychopathic), and his actions undeniably evil. So the middle story actually didn’t achieve its purpose for me, as I viewed him as an arrogant bastard who didn’t have any regard for Comer’s feelings on the matter. The third story deliberately labelled ‘the truth’, merely puts what we saw in the previous telling into an even more truthful, 3D context (where Damon’s character is now a self-absorbed, misogynistic jerk who sees wives as political pawns and baby-making devices). I understand now that the film wanted me to see that Driver truly believed in his own innocence, but since it doesn’t actually play convincingly on screen to that effect I think it makes the second telling pretty unnecessary at the end of the day. I did however like the way a certain kiss was differently portrayed in each of the three versions. That was clever and subtle. ***** END SPOILER ***** On the plus side, look out for solid small turns by Zeljko Ivanek (as a court official), and a thoroughly horrid Harriet Walter as Damon’s ghastly unsympathetic mother.

 

A box-office failure due to the difficult time in which it was released and being the kind of dour epic people generally don’t flock to anyway. There’s some interesting and worthy elements here, and it nearly comes off. It’s to be commended for addressing some pretty dark and misogynistic elements of Medieval society. The romantic notion of chivalry is completely obliterated here. However, two big pieces of miscasting, a choppy first half, and a wobbly midsection hold this one back from a recommendation. Adam Driver and Jodie Comer are terrific, however and the dour cinematography by Dariusz Wolski (“The Crow”, Scott’s underrated “Alien: Covenant”) is appropriate. Worth a look, disappointing or not.

 

Rating: C+