I haven’t really gotten into this in past reviews of his work, but I have a serious admiration for the work of Ridley Scott. When he’s on point, he is capable of some of the greatest works that the medium has to offer, whether it’s Alien, Blade Runner, or (personal pick here) Hannibal. But even in his lesser films, there is always something in his productions that I just have to point to as being objectively brilliant.
Exodus: Gods and Kings? Yeah, that wasn’t great, but the casting for God was ingenious. Prometheus and Alien: Covenant? Michael Fassbender’s David is one of the most fascinating cinematic characters of the entire 2010s, even if those films didn’t make full use of him. Even All In The Money In The World, which I seem to be in the minority on as I found it quite inconsistent, has Christopher Plummer giving the performance of a lifetime that held everything together. The man’s talent shines through no matter what he’s working on, so regardless of how this turns out, I’ve been looking forward to it all the same.
And with his latest, we have a reunion of the writing team behind Good Will Hunting (with some crucial additions made by Can You Ever Forgive Me? scribe Nicole Holofcener) to create what ostensibly feels like a bookend for Scott’s career at large, given his debut with The Duellists. Sure, the existence of House Of Gucci already puts that into question, but it is nevertheless peppered with a lot of the feminist themes that have been the backbone of Scott’s oeuvre. It focuses on the last recorded trial by combat in French history, with knight Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) accusing squire Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) of raping his wife (the Lady Marguerite played by Jodie Comer) and wanting to settle the matter with bloodshed.
In that sentence alone, I think the tone of the work comes across pretty well, as a lot of it involves heavy demystification of medieval knights and the code of chivalry that is often attached to them historically and in the works of fiction. With the melodramatic, almost soap-opera-esque, tone of the dialogue and the honed-in attention to detail in the costuming and set design, it basically turns into a prestige version of White Knight vs. Nice Guy, with Damon as the possessive ‘protector’ of her woman’s honour, and Driver as the self-professed romantic who insists that she is better off with him… regardless of her own feelings on the subject. They both see her as just property to have on-hand, much as the society around them does; just under different, thinly-veiled guises.
The structure of the narrative also harkens back to The Duellists as it’s split into chapters, with each focusing on the story through the perspective of Jean, Jacques, and Marguerite. Big Rashomon energy. With Jean, we see a leader who just wants what is owed him, whether it be land, title, or living heir. With Jacques, we see a lover who captivates all the women in France and who regularly has orgies with Count Pierre d’Alenรงon (Ben Affleck at his most delightfully foppish and bitchy). While I’d argue that the second part doesn’t go far enough in trying to paint this guy as being in the right, even through his own biased perspective, it initially sets up the titular Duel like something out of a sports movie, setting up the stakes for the participants so the event itself is tense.
And then the third act comes, and with it a major tonal shift. Damon and Affleck wrote the first two chapters, and it shows them in prime form for something neither of them are as familiar with compared to acting, but the third is where Holofcener comes in. Now, of the work I’ve seen from her, she has a real knack of making the audience sympathise with people that, ostensibly, are not worth such consideration. That is not the stance taken here, though. No, this is where the film turns into something similar to The Assistant or Never Rarely Sometimes Always, in that it’s all about a woman straining under a system designed to scrutinise her personhood. To quote Jean’s harpy of a mother, “There is no right. There is only the power of men.”
It's quite a switch-up, and the details it gets into as far as just how little worth women had in medieval society kept me squirming and clenched-up in my seat for a good chunk of the final reel. It puts a nail in the coffin of the larger deconstruction of how ‘noble’ the knights of old are regarded, highlighting something that, even beyond the MeToo timeliness of the plot itself, feels very relevant today as far as the larger conversation about women’s rights and, more pointedly, who is having that conversation. It calls out performative allies as being just as much a part of the problem as the outright aggressors, and while I can easily see some being offended at that idea, they are also the ones who most need to understand this concept. Allyship is about looking out for others, not looking out for yourself.
This is the kind of film that will likely sit with audiences for a while after watching it, both for its subject matter and for its willingness to look at chest-beating macho aggression and point out just how self-serving and ultimately pointless it all is. Scott shows ample skill with framing, storytelling, and definitely in the casting and ability with actors (Damon and Driver may technically be the stars, but it’s Comer who holds it all together; I look forward to seeing her again in Free Guy), and it’s all in service to a story that shows the contrast between the self-delusion of living under higher ideals, and those who have to exist with the consequences of that worldview. Like I said, when Ridley Scott is on-point, he can deliver some seriously impressive art, and he has done so once again.
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