Jodie Comer Takes Center Stage in Trailer for 'The Last Duel'
If the trailer for the upcoming Ridley Scott historical drama The Last Duel is anything to go by, Killing Eve star Jodie Comer's film career is off to an incredible start.
Based on the book The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial by Combat in Medieval France by Eric Jagers, the lush period film focuses on the fourteenth-century true story of what was the last officially recognized judicial duel in France. Comer stars as Marguerite de Carrouges, a woman who accuses her husband's best friend, Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver), of sexually assaulting her.
Le Gris denies the accusation, prompting Marguerite's husband Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) to challenge him to a duel with the highest possible stakes - all their lives. Should her husband be defeated, Marguerite will be burned at the stake, convicted of making a false accusation, and found judged by God.
The trailer is two minutes of lush, epic medieval, well, everything, and should immediately draw comparisons to Scott's other big-budget historical epic, Gladiator. Watch for yourselves below.
“You are risking my life, so you can save your pride." Comer's Marguerite spits in the trailer, with the sort of ferocity that makes me feel that this may yet be a more subversive sort of story than many film-goers may expect. At first glance, this film seems in danger of becoming another disheartening example of the ways that crimes committed against women are often used to facilitate stories for me. Yet the brief snippets of Comer's performance here as a woman who refuses to be shamed or silenced seem to indicate that may not be the case this time around.
The screenplay was written by Damon, Ben Affleck, and Nicole Holofcener. Affleck appears in the trailer briefly - and almost unrecognizably - as Count Pierre d’Alençon, as does Comer's former Killing Eve co-star Harriet Walter.
The Last Duel is currently slated to hit theaters on October 15.
