I will not spend half of this article bemoaning the fact that once again a successful in most regards mid-budget adult drama has bombed at the box office. I actually feel like this first paragraph should just be that repeated over and over again Bart Simpson style, but you get the idea. Let’s just stay positive that we did actually get the film and can enjoy it for the very intriguing, frequently entertaining, complex wild ride that it is. The Last Duel is a wonderfully structured triptych of versions of the same series of events told from different points of view culminating and climaxing in the eponymous duel that everything must ultimately come to. The Last Duel joyfully returns Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to the screen together, but also behind the screenplay also, this time with the intrinsic help of Nicole Holofcener, aswell having a whole other bounty of hidden joys in its arsenal. The Last Duel really is one of the best films of the year thus far in my opinion.
But let’s be honest, it’s a tough sell. The marketing has chosen to focus on the duel element, which is sensational and Ridley Scott does a usually masterful approach to the brutality and violence depicted on screen in these battle moments. However the heart and real core of the film is actually a rape allegation, aswell as a repeated focus on medieval politics and economy. The film’s script however manages to make all of this deeply interesting and the focus is always on the emotions of the character and the journeys that they so go on. The depiction of the rape is shown multiple times, leading further into the structuring of the film and although of course a deeply uncomfortable matter to view, does in its smallest details reflect the societal politics and overall themes that the film has chosen to dissect. All of which is handled with a very deft and un-sensationalist touch. Where Scott and the script have fun in the brutality of the duel, the balancing of tone and depiction in comparison to this integral assault show a talent for craft that Scott hasn’t exemplified in some time in these brand of historic epics. For the film is just that, an epic, however despite its running time the films structure and pace never once lead it to be in any way boring. If one was to make one gripe with the film’s structure, it’s that by the time we do reach a final title card, alteration is made that makes it very clear which side the film is on. Now, any viewer with any amount of empathy or intellectual tact would choose this side also, however this choice in the relaying of the films stance does lead to a loss I feel of the implicit narrative murkiness that the film had previously done such a good job bringing to the screen.
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as both writers and performers take very different tact’s in bringing their respective characters to the screen. Whereas Affleck seems to be having some of the most outrageous fun on-screen then he’s had in a while, Damon has given himself a figure to portray who spends most his time ruined by his own misery and horridness. After seeing the film as a whole and what the truth of certain events most like was, the first section of this film as told from Damon’s character’s perspective would play for me now on a second watch most likely as a very funny ‘woe is me’ re-telling of events, bringing even more conceptual entertainment from the films hardly new but successfully delivered premise. Jodie Comer and Adam Driver will hardly shock any viewer with just how excellent they are and how diverse this role in the midst of their career, however this should in no way underplay just how excellent they really once again are! Comer is a victim here, but her performance and the script are far smarter than to re-write history and give her some completely out-of-place monologue renouncing the wrongs she has had thrust upon her in this life, instead the depth of Comer’s performance leads one to understand the multiple levels of grief that she is experiencing all through the facade of public performance. This is a similar vein to Driver’s performance, who relishes repeatedly in the overall charisma of his part, whilst similarly not playing down any of the horrors of the figure, whilst also not undermining his own character’s lack of understanding and own personal empathy in the situation. In many ways The Last Duel doesn’t go all the way in delving into the complexities of the story it’s trying to tell, choosing instead to come to a conclusion by the end, however all in all the film certainly is a far more complex and richer beast than many of the films we have received of late.
A wonderfully dramatic 8/10 with an array of fantastic performances, each one building intriguingly upon the other. Much the same can be said for the films triptych of views as they contradict, mirror and often inform one another. Damon, Affleck and Holofcener have concocted a wonderfully dynamic and propellant script from Eric Jager’s non-fiction books and Scott has brought this script to the screen with a flare and precision that really does put this film way above intellectually and conceptually many of the other films in its ilk.
P.S. In the world of Highlander there can only be one; by this rule this means that only one of the prestige Ridley Scott movies we’re getting this winter can succeed. Now it’s immediately becoming very clear that in the commercial sense that The Last Duel will not succeed, so now we must just wait and see what will be the situation with House of Gucci. I mean it really does look like a real firecracker of a film. I have no idea why I chose to describe it like that.
- - Thomas Carruthers
 – Review){kind=link}
0 Comments