Posted by admin on September 21, 2021

On Friday night, Jodie Comer’s latest film, The Last Duel, premiered at the Venice Film Festival—and its reputation preceded it. Directed by veteran filmmaker Sir Ridley Scott and costarring Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Adam Driver, it marks Affleck and Damon’s first reunion as screenwriting collaborators since 1997’s Good Will Hunting earned them the Academy Award for best original screenplay. While the most feverish chatter at the premiere might have surrounded another infamous reunion—namely Bennifer, who took to the red carpet for the first time since getting back together earlier this year—rest assured that as the lights went up in the Sala Grande following the screening, there was only one thing the audience was talking about: Comer’s extraordinary performance.

The Last Duel tells the story of the last legally sanctioned duel in French history, between the knight Jean de Carrouges (Damon) and the squire Jacques Le Gris (Driver), who were once close friends but became bitter enemies after the latter raped the former’s wife, Marguerite (Comer), and denied it. The film cleverly illustrates the story through a Rashomon-style trio of perspectives culminating with Marguerite’s, which offers a rare and richly crafted insight into the interior world of an oppressed but formidable medieval woman. “What was really exciting to me was the opportunity to give this woman a voice,” says Comer the day after the premiere. “It’s crazy that there was so much written about this story but yet very little information about the woman at the heart of it.”


 

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