The third chapter is billed as “The Truth According To Marguerite de Carrouges” and to drive a point home, the words “the truth” stay up longer on this title card than they do on the preceding. This is a lacerating sequence in which both Jean and Jacques are shown as chest-thumping brutes and opportunists. Jean believes he was tender to his bride; Marguerite’s section tells mostly of how he bickered with Marguerite’s father over her dowry. And so on. This telling repeats the rape scene, which is arguably necessary but uncomfortable—and of course that may be the point. What fascinates in these different perspectives are the small details—how one character remembers a brief kiss differently than another, how a pair of shoes removed daintily at the bottom of a stair in one telling becomes shoes falling off feet as the stairs are mounted in a panicked rush.
And it all leads up to the title duel which, even by the high standards set by Scott’s “Gladiator,” is what you’d call a humdinger.
There are plenty of nits one can pick about this picture. While Driver and Comer almost automatically fit into the movie’s world of lances and horses and castles (and various views of Notre Dame Cathedral while under construction), Damon and Affleck are harder period sells. Especially with Affleck going blond here. No performer commits any outright fouls—the screenplay has them all speaking an only slightly treated form of American colloquial English, so there are no Shakespearean pitfalls present. But it’s certain that connoisseurs of the “Sad Affleck” meme are gonna go to town once they can start getting screen shots from this movie.
Then of course there’s the “how feminist is it, anyway?” question. I could say “more than a little,” given that its observations pertaining to still-current issues land with some force and are arguably fortified in the context of medieval hypocrisy and barbarity. Nevertheless, while “The Last Duel” may be a partial model of mindfulness, it still obeys the requirements of the period action drama. This should surprise no one—this is a major studio multi-million dollar production overseen by a director whose work has only rarely skirted feisty indie territory. And let’s not forget that when he has, it’s been with just as mixed a bag of results as he’s had throughout his career—I’m thinking “Thelma and Louise” on the credit side and “A Good Year” on the debit.
When it’s delivering what the best of Scott and company's work can do—and the imagery, much of it grounded in a palette that could be a tribute to its anti-hero, whose last name translates as “the gray,” is frequently startling—the commentary pursued by the movie’s scenario isn’t entirely subsumed, but it’s not paramount, either.
Exclusively in theaters Friday, October 15th.
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