Review : The Last Duel

Ridley Scott is either going very grumpy old man, or very cleverly calculating old man. See, the only reason I saw The Last Duel is because I read an interview where he was bitching about how his movie was failing in the cinemas because of millennials being glued to their smartphones. He also said that Disney did a fantastic promotional job, and this had me rather... puzzled. I'm a millennial, and this movie, it turns out, is right up my alley - and I wasn't previously aware of anything other than the title.

So the only reason I watched even the trailer was because of Ridley Scott complaining. And far from some 18th-century swordfight as the title would suggest, it's about a medieval joust. With knights in shining armour charging into rivers and beating the crap out of each other. While I might watch the former on TV, the latter has definite cinematic potential for me. Throw in that it's all about the search for truth, and this ticks a lot of boxes for me, so much so that Disney's promotional campaign clearly messed up somewhere... but anyway, off to the cinema I went !

And of course : lots of millennials are not unruly teenagers but are now approaching 40. Also, feckless old people, get this : moronic teenagers tend to grow up. So just sod off with the anti-millennial bullshit already - your generation wrecked the planet, idiots.

And... it's a great film ! For some reason medieval France looks gloomier and wetter than Wales, but that's not a bad thing. The more epic battle shots shown in the trailer are, though very impressive, also very short, so don't go in expecting a war story because it isn't. This is a smaller-scale story that happens to feature soldiers, so it doesn't skimp on the battles where necessary, but it also doesn't try and force them in unnecessarily. Every single scene serves a clear purpose.

The story is based on real-life events told from three different perspectives. In each retelling, the differences are subtle - as in reality, most disagreements are relatively minor. Characters exaggerate themselves and each other, but the major events generally still happen. Some things all three of them agree on completely. Very satisfyingly, it's not a heavy-handed approach where everyone views themselves as flawless and each other as hopeless, but much more nuanced. No character emerges smelling of roses even according to their own story. Especially noteworthy are the scenes that are omitted in each version, making it deliberately impossible to corroborate certain events. The viewer has to think for themselves, but is never overwhelmed or confused.

While I normally try and avoid major spoilers in reviews, in this case I don't think I can. So if you don't want to know anything crucial, stop here. I'll leave you with my summary rating of 8 or possibly 9 out of 10. Thoroughly excellent. Scroll down if you want more.

Right then. If you don't mind spoilers, the story concerns the rape of a young French noblewoman. First, we get the story from the perspective of her husband, then the rapist, and then finally herself - which the film alleges is the truth, as the author of the original book asserts.

The husband views himself as a model of chivalry : bold, daring, impetuous, yet devoted to his wife and attentive to her needs. While he does make mistakes (sometimes big ones) he always tries to admit his wrongdoing and recovers swiftly. He feels ill-treated by his social betters, yet tries to do right by them - only standing his ground when he feels his honour demands it. When his wife tells him she was raped by his onetime friend while he was away, he does ask her quite angrily if she was telling the truth, but very quickly comes to her defence, prepared to risk everything (as it turns out) on a noble cause.

The rapist's perspective is somewhat different. He views the husband as kindof a silly figure : brave, and a good fighter, but not very bright and quick to anger. The most notable scene present in this section, not featured in the other retellings, is that the wife was essentially flirtatious with him once, even hinting at an actual affair, so there is something of a tendency to suggest he might really be in love with her. But the rape scene itself is brutal, and could not, under any circumstances, in any way whatsoever by anyone at all, be mistaken for anything other than the detestable assault that it is.

The wife, it turns out, views her husband as an oaf. He's not exactly cruel (at least by the admittedly lousy standards of the day), but shows her very little affection - in marked contrast to his own perspective, while she is essentially the one holding his household together. When "they" decide the best course of action is a trial by combat, he says, "I have a plan", whereas in her version it's "we have a plan".

Her perspective is much the most interesting since it covers the initial trial and the final duel. There are a lot of nods to.... certain modern demographics, who think that a woman can't get pregnant if they experience orgasm ("it's just science !" says a lawyer). And it's in her perspective that the awful consequences of failure are revealed : if her husband dies in combat, she will be burned alive for slander. She wants justice for herself, but has to face the appalling choice of this risking the life of her unborn child. This makes her husband's initially skeptical reaction somewhat more understandable, since the consequences of failure are truly extreme - yet in her version, he reacts not by merely becoming angry, but actually throttling her. It's a brilliant blend of conflicting tensions and interpretations.

I won't state the film's conclusion, but it does have one. It rounds off in a satisfying way, while still leaving the viewer with plenty of difficult questions. It's not at all your traditional historical epic, but presents the past in quite a different light (and with tip-top cinematography, especially during the climatic duel itself). The characters feel much more real and believable than in most historical movies. I mean, Gladiator is undeniably stonkingly good, but Maximus is hardly your average solider. The Last Duel takes the historical genre in a very unusual, very topical, and very welcome direction. It's almost enough to make me forgive Ridley Scott for that terrible Robin Hood movie.

So yes, Scott is right to be angry that this movie isn't doing well. It's a great film which will no doubt benefit from a re-watch, since I've almost certainly misremembered the details. I'm also adding the original book to my reading list.

All the same, the real reason for cinematic failure is surely because it came out at the time of No Time To Die and Dune, both of which were much more heavily anticipated. Not feckin' smartphones, for heaven's sake. Which just goes to show that even directors making brilliant films about the truth can also, on occasion, also just be Bloody Stupid.