The Last Duel
I was pumped for this movie! As one of the biggest Adam Driver fans in the world, I think he is great in everything he does and couldn’t wait to see him take on a period piece such as this. Matt Damon has had his time in the spotlight. I never really got why people liked him so much but whatever. Him and Ben Affleck are, I guess, a dream team and they were working together in this movie. Didn’t they write “Good Will Hunting” together and win a screenplay Oscar for it? I think that’s right. So, I had high hopes for this movie.
It was fine. Nothing to write home about. In the moment, with my extremely high expectations being dashed, I was immediately devastated but the more I thought about it as its own entity, not an Adam Driver or Matt Damon/Ben Affleck movie, the less devastated I was. First, I have to talk about the accents because the accents really stood out to me. The accents were terrible!! I could not believe how bad they were. Maybe my gauge is off but it seems like in the 1300s, the accents would have been really strong French accents, that’s not what I heard. I heard weak English accents. I was completely flabbergasted. I am surprised that Adam Driver, who is a Julliard-trained actor, did not value the importance of accents. Above that, I am surprised that Jodie Comer, who is an English-born actress, did not stop the filming and be like, “This isn’t right.” Maybe I am mistaken and attempting to do a French accent would have been bad for the film. Nobody was even attempting to add French spins to their accents. It was just weird.
I had heard that Jodie Comer was the best part of this film and I will say that’s true! She is the main
character so the audience learns a lot about her and feels for her. Did I think that this was an award-winning performance? No. The subject matter behind her character might elevate her performance though which I think is a shame because then the potential award is not even about the performance itself, it’s more about the subject of the movie. Ugh. Oh well.
Oof. The cold, snowy, dark climate that is represented in this movie looks horrible! I am glad that I do not live there. Everything, really, about this movie just seemed so dark and dismal. It made me feel depressed. I wanted to put a coat on and go watch some “Seinfeld” after the movie was over to cheer myself up, which is exactly what I did. If anything was great, I would say it was the production design. I don’t know if that castle was green-screen or not but I thought the land in France where they were intended to be looked great! Dismal and dreadful, but great.
The character acting, although I did not care for the accents, was quite good! I found myself feeling bad for characters and feeling suspense for the story, especially Matt Damon and Jodie
Comer’s characters. After probably half way through the movie, I lost the celebrity and got lost in the character. Until that point, I would look at them or listen to them and think, “This is so fake,” but once half of the movie went by, I believed they were who they were playing.
I thought that telling the story from three different perspectives was really fun and smart. You can really see how situations can look different from different people. This film has caused me to take notice of how each situation I am in might be able to be viewed differently. I don’t think I would be able to change my perspective, literally, but just having the knowledge that there are different perspectives will help me in my quest to navigate the world.
So, if you want to see this movie, then see it! If you don’t, then don’t. There is a podcast about the last recorded duel in history. If you decide to see it, you may want to listen to that before or after.
Comentários