Swords And Secrets Clash In Iconic Director’s Meaty, Medieval Melodrama

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 32 seconds ago

Here’s an awkward admission: sometimes, I watch movies simply because I think they’re going to be the kind of trainwreck that I can’t tear my eyes away from. That’s why I ended up watching The Last Duel (2021), one of the weirdest titles in director Ridley Scott’s filmography. While Scott had done historical epics such as Gladiator before, he was a director I always associated with ambitious sci-fi films such as Alien, Blade Runner, and Prometheus. Now, all of a sudden, he was directing a swords-and-sandals medieval romp that starred distractingly famous faces like Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Adam Driver. Jason Bourne fighting Kylo Ren in ye olden times? This I had to see!

Again, my assumption was that this was going to absolutely suck. The male leads all have distractingly modern faces, the story is very dense, and Ridley Scott isn’t always consistent (seriously, go compare Gladiator and Gladiator II, I dare you). To my utter shock, though, The Last Duel is surprisingly great. The director mashes together a famous storytelling technique and a luscious medieval setting to offer very nuanced commentary on sex, violence, and power. This is Scott boldly going where he has never gone before, and you can join his journey by streaming The Last Duel on Disney+.

Good Will Dueling

The central plot of The Last Duel is relatively straightforward. A knight played by Matt Damon begins the film having a relatively positive relationship with his squire, a man played by Adam Driver. However, the squire ends up having sex with the knight’s wife, and the characters have very different accounts of this particular event. The squire maintains that this was consensual sex, but the knight maintains that his former friend assaulted his beloved wife. They take the matter to the highest law in the land, and the King decrees that they will settle the matter through the titular last duel.  

While that may sound simplistic enough, Scott adds complexity to The Last Duel by embracing the classic Rashomon storytelling method. We don’t just hear about what happened in a he said, she said kind of way; instead, the movie brings everyone’s very different accounts to life. We first see the knight’s version of events and then the squire’s, culminating in the final, explicitly true account from the knight’s wife (played by Jodie Comer). In this way, the film invites us to investigate our own assumptions about these characters and events, all of which are inevitably shaped by modern debates about the relationship between sex, power, and systemic misogyny. 

The Medieval World As You’ve Never Seen It 

The writing and the performances (more on those soon) in The Last Duel are really top-notch. However, it’s worth pointing out that this is one of the rare films that would be worth watching even with the sound off. That’s because it’s a visual feast from beginning to end, one that perfectly recreates a bygone era. Nothing looks like a simple sound stage; instead, it looks like Scott painstakingly brought the 15th century back to life. That’s a major part of what makes this movie so immersive: long before you discover its characters and plot, you’ll fall in love with its stark beauty.

To put it in blunter terms, The Last Duel is a movie where you can really see the money onscreen. While a good chunk of the $100 million dollar budget likely went to the bigger names in the cast, it’s clear that there was plenty of cash left for sets and costumes. That may sound like a low bar to clear, but keep in mind that The Pendragon Cycle: Rise of the Merlin reportedly spent $20 million on seven episodes, and the costumes and props look like they were fished out of a Spirit Halloween dumpster. 

By contrast, every aspect of The Last Duel’s costumes and props is so lovingly crafted that each scene transports us half a millennium into the past.

Surprisingly Immersive Performances 

To my astonishment, The Last Duel’s performances are really, really good. The Rashomon storytelling style allows leading man Matt Damon to play multiple versions of his character. Sometimes, he is charming and noble; other times, he is cold and conniving. The same is broadly true of Adam Driver’s character, who is alternately portrayed as a greedy, lustful social climber or as a charismatic man and gentle lover. This is part of the movie’s magic trick, of course: which narrative you find more convincing ultimately reveals more about you than the various characters onscreen.

While Ben Affleck is great as a count who’d rather pick up a wine glass than a sword, the best performance of The Last Duel comes from Jodie Comer. She plays the knight’s wife, a role that often reduces her agency and presents her as a prize to be fought over by rival men. The movie is very interested in examining misogyny and its effects through a medical lens, something I worried that Ridley Scott would struggle to portray. But Comer’s nuanced and delicate performance helps hammer this point home even as her own narrative underscores the need to believe women when they speak out about their attackers.

Living Up To The Title

In case you’re wondering, The Last Duel really lives up to its title. Everything comes down to a nasty duel between Damon and Driver, one that is intended to reveal the truth of the squire’s alleged crimes. The duel works well as a fight scene, and its sheer brutality gives this film a messy, must-watch climax. But the duel also works as a culmination of the movie’s themes, revealing that truth is a very illusory concept: what and who we believe is often an extension of our societal programming. And while you can kill a man, it’s not nearly so easy to kill what you have been programmed to believe. 

The Last Duel is a meaty, medieval melodrama from a director best known for redefining the sci-fi genre. But Ridley Scott does an excellent job telling a very unconventional story with a method that makes each scene more immersive than the last. Do you want to get to the bottom of this mystery and see who the real villain is? Or maybe you just want to drool over lavish sets and pulse-pounding fight scenes? Either way, you need to put down the sword and pick up the remote, as The Last Duel is currently streaming on Disney+!