@bragison I think the reason we get the other perspectives is to understand how different people can experience the same events in different ways. From Matt Damon's perspective, he felt like he was a man of honor and duty, that he was brave and stood up for the right things in life, while we see from the other perspectives that he makes a fool out of himself, and that he isn't caring for his wife. From Adam Driver's perspective, we can see how he genuinely thought Jodie Comer was interested in him, and that when the main event happened, from his perspective he felt like she was only being playful in her protest, not serious, whereas we see from her perspective that none of those things were true. From the men's perspectives, we see Jodie Comer as this quiet, shy woman who doesn't have much value besides an object of desire and her childbearing capabilities. Whereas from her perspective, we she that she is capable of running a business, is smart and charismatic, and has quite the social life. She lives a fulfilling life outside the world of these men, and is ultimately happy when both of them are gone. I think it's important to get different perspectives in a story like this to understand the actions and emotions the different characters go through, and I think Ridley Scott did a fantastic job balancing these stories. The point of the different perspectives wasn't to create a mystery, but to expand the audience's understanding of the actions and thought processes of the characters.
Review by Josh DeakinBlockedParent2022-01-21T10:37:16Z
Telling the same story from different perspectives is an interesting and effective way of exploring the various truths and fictions in each version of events, however unlike Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's classic In a Grove (and its 1950 adaptation Rashomon), which casts doubts in the reader's mind as to which character's stories, if any, are reliable, The Last Duel tells us in the title card of the third and final chapter that Lady Marguerite's account is the truth.
On the one hand, this is an understandable decision from the filmmakers, as not doing so would have allowed doubt to be cast on the truthfulness of her accusation, which would have likely caused mass criticism and outrage among some regardless of the actual quality of the storytelling (and to be fair, even In a Grove did not cast doubt on the rape aspect of its story despite being published almost 90 years prior to the Me Too movement).
On the other hand, however, this decision does beg the question of why structure the story this way in the first place, since arguably the whole point of showing differing perspectives is to give the audience a thought-provoking mystery as to who to believe (not that it would be much of a mystery even without the title card, as the brilliant acting of Comer and Driver made it pretty clear where the truth lay).
So while it would have been nice to see some faith from the filmmakers in their own storytelling and actors (and the intelligence of their audience), the awkwardness of this decision doesn't detract too much from the film for me to not recommend it.