After seeing House of Gucci, I was feeling trepidatious with the prospect of sitting down and watching another 3-hour Ridley Scott feature, but my fears were misplaced. I’m stunned and shocked at the disparity between the two features he output in 2021. The Last Duel is a fantastic, historical drama that explores the malleability of the truth when told from numerous perspectives and the often-silenced voice of women during medieval times, which in turn parallels the way our society is today.
It’s interested to set this film in the 1300s as it allows for an explicit critique of the patriarchy, where women’s issues are instead twisted and used to glorify and stroke the male ego. There’s no sympathetic male hero, no supportive female friends, Lady Marguerite is alone in her fight yet still requires a man for her case to be fought. Instead of this fight being about the violation of her body, it instead becomes a spectacle that’s used to entertain crowds and the fragility of the men’s masculinity.
Having the story told from three perspectives was an inspired choice as it allowed for the audience to explore the psyches of the main characters and how human’s memories aren’t objective, they twist real life events into versions that we believe are right. The first act is a little slow, as there’s no real scenes to chew on, a lot of it is place setting for the spectacular other two acts, especially Jodie Comer’s section which is just fantastic. The film made a smart choice in how they indicated this to be the most real of the sections too.
There are brilliant action scenes you’d expect in this with it being a medieval film, but this is first and foremost a drama, and a beautifully written one at that. While I wasn’t in love with the very end, the final battle, and tying that back to Lady Marguerite was done so expertly. The performances are delightful too, with Matt Damon and Adam Driver giving fun, disturbingly toxic masculine portrayals. Ben Affleck is an absolute delight; he’s clearly having so much fun with his role here and it adds a nice bit of comedy to the film that’s not obtuse.
Jodie Comer is the real star though. Since the film is spilt into three perspectives, the actors are, in a sense, able to give three entirely different interpretations of their characters. While all the actors do this, Comer is fantastic, the subtleties in her body language, inflection in her voice, the way she acts around different characters is compelling and enticing to watch. This is no surprise as she’s able to change herself on a whim in Killing Eve, still it was refreshing to see in this film as it was so subtle yet explicit at the same time.
★★★★
