Matt Damon and Ben Affleck only wrote for the man characters in The Last Duel
There was a reason for it, it's not just because the guys behind Good Will Hunting can only write men
Film News Matt Damon
Here’s a story that plays a little better when you know the context, outside of the potential for a spicy headline: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, co-writers on the upcoming Ridley Scott movie The Last Duel, did not write the scenes that take place from the perspective of the film’s female lead, played by Jodie Comer. They only wrote for the film’s main man characters, played by Damon and Adam Driver, meaning—if you wanted to be a little unfair and clickbait-y—they only wrote for the male characters and hired Nicole Holofcener to write for the female character, as if the guys who wrote the Boston bro epic Good Will Hunting are simply unable to write women.
But, context helps here, and it turns out that this divvying up of writing duties actually served a purpose. The Last Duel is set in Olde Timey France and is about about a knight (Damon) whose wife (Comer) has accused his squire (Driver) of rape, leading to the two former-friends to demand that the matter be settled with an old-fashioned duel to the death. Speaking with ET, Damon explained that the movie is “about perspective,” so it made sense to have men write the perspective of the men and have a woman write the perspective of the woman. He says the established “the architecture” of the movie. Presumably, this means the scenes focusing on different characters will feel different, perhaps introducing some kind of Rashomon-style angle where it’s unclear whose perspective you’re supposed to trust.
Whether or not it’s literally because of this particular approach to structure, though, Damon says he and Affleck had a much easier time writing The Last Duel than they did on Good Will Hunting. He told ET that “the process went along a lot faster” and that the two of them might even “write a lot more in the future” because it was more fun and less time-consuming than they thought it would be. Seeing as how this is only the second time the two of them have written a screenplay together, more Damon/Affleck scripts could potentially be a big deal—unless this turns out to be bad, in which case they’ll just have to go back to being lifelong friends.
79 Comments
It says something about the current state of the A.V. Club that when I saw the headline in my RSS feed, I assumed it was a typo for “main.”
I see what they’re going for but it still comes across as a grammatical trainwreck.
I don’t get why they didn’t just say “male characters.”
They’re averse to using “female” as an adjective, so…Nah, it’s just because Barsanti can’t write gud.
We should be grateful he managed to spell “Ben” correctly.
I suspect it might have been an attempt at a joke.
Right?
Femans ftw!
These days I just assume that every single word in an AV Club article is a typo that just happens to also be a real word that makes sense with all the other typo words in the sentence. (Plus some actual unreadable typos.)
Though it should probably be Affleck and Damon on the couch while William Goldman types away at the keyboard.
After looking up the real story, I’m very worried about this film coming off like it’s giving the message that rape accusations shouldn’t be believed, since to stay true to the known facts it’ll have to stay completely ambiguous about whether the accusation is true. And Ridley has certainly given the impression in certain other movies that he can’t really be trusted to gracefully navigate that kind of nuance.
From a brief overview of the wikipedia of the book, the Knight accused the squire of raping his wife, which is rife with nuance.
The trailer makes it sound like it won’t be so ambiguous, hopefully.
I’m sure Ridley Scott had a lot of influence on the shape of the trailer, but no marketing department for a major studio is likely to insert ambiguity about rape.
Movies should only reflect the world we want to live in, or they’re not good. I completely agree.
There’s a lot of real estate between “ ‘he said, she said’-style cases of ambiguity have been a part of western culture for hundreds of years, and we have still not found a really good way to resolve them,” and “don’t believe rape accusations.”There’s a tremendous amount of material to explore just in how historical perspectives evolved as the years went by. Your comment, hoping for a resolution, is similar to how in the decades after the event historians began quoting thinly-sourced stories of deathbed confessions to remove any doubt.We crave certainty, and we want to do the right thing. The world is often too complicated to give us the certainty that we ARE doing the right thing. Just have to bite our lips and make a choice sometimes.
This is a really strange thing to worry about. It’s Ridley Scott and a movie set int he 1300’s. The movie very obviously isn’t going to try and be a message for either way of thinking.
Are you telling me your lady wife has never accused your squire of rape, Sir Cchrist626?!
You forgot the “/s” tag.
I don’t think you know what /s means. Because that wouldn’t fit there at all lol.
Nah, what I don’t “know” is how making a movie set in the 1300’s, or having it helmed by Ridley Scott, would somehow guarantee that it won’t put forth a troubling narrative of “don’t believe the woman”.So to be clear, what I was saying is that your comment would only have held up if you included the “sarcasm” tag.
Because anyone with an ounce of common sense would realize that it won’t be. Or that if you are so upset that the women might be lying in a movie then there is something seriously wrong with you.
What would you know about someone with an ounce of common sense?Who’s upset?
That you aren’t one and put an unhealthy amount of stock into making movies fit your narrative when they clearly aren’t trying to create one.
Cchrist dude, you’re right – I was assuming movies try to create narratives…that’s OBVIOUSLY not the case. To think that they do (or to ponder said non-existent narratives) would be unhealthy and show a lack of common sense. It’s not like movies try to influence people in any way./s
Some movies to try and create narratives. A period piece by Ridley Scott very obviously isn’t going to try and do that. Yes, it’s completely unhealthy to get upset over something like this. Extremely so.
lol I’m not upset. I’m amused that you think any movie wouldn’t have a narrative though. Like, unless you’re talking some French arthouse movie or something, you pretty much need a narrative to get butts in seats – something Ridley Scott does very well at. Have you seen any Ridley Scott movies?
Oh Jesus Christ. You are conflating a movies story narrative to a movies real life narrative. You are an idiot lol.
Am I an idiot for conflating them or are you an idiot for thinking you can have one without the other?
You are the idiot. 100% you lol.
I’m not buying into your narrative, sorry. Keep trying though.
I can only imagine what narrative you think I’m pushing right now. I hope one day you will be able to think for yourself on these matters. Enjoy being offended at things that don’t exist!
I’m hoping it’s more showing how these claims are rarely false, and that the duel/debate around a rape is often still a barbaric thing to put someone through.
…and makes it all about the men. I was concerned, when I heard that Jodie Comer (great TV actress, but largely unknown in big movie terms) would be in this with three A List Hollywood stars, that the woman’s perspective might get lost. The trailer suggests not, as does the idea of having a woman come in to write the female part. But the editing is going to do be doing some very heavy lifting to get this film right.
You’re worried about a movie being ambiguous?
lol okay sure, this sounds plausible. Every other script that gets made into a movie in 2021 has roughly 6 credits, but in those cases it’s because the writers are a bunch of hacks, right? Not like ben and matt!
if you wanted to be a little unfair and clickbait-y- The AV Club
Every time I see the old “motto formatting” joke I think “What is dead may never die.”
I tried it over on Kotaku and got shadowbanned.
yeah – I got shadowbanned here too for speaking ill of the av club. just happened a couple of weeks ago.
But rises again, harder and stronger………………………OF COCK!
-The AV Club Comments Section
“I got a Community notif-”*decapitated by dueling opponent*
it makes any day better when you someone motto format it
EVERY TIME I SEE MOTTO FORMATTING I FAP!
Something about CancerAids, Dawes and….you guessed it…Frank Stallone.
FIRST!that is all.
……….. and a woman.
But, context helps here…- Generally not The AV Club
Didn’t do Ellie Kemper any good!
i laughed.
Thank you for this fantastic article! Not only does it acknowledge the amygdala-hijacking reality of click-bait, but it also references Rashomon!
More women writing for women can only be a good thing.
I was just thinking this, I don’t see the issue at all. I would have more issues with Benfleck writing a rape victim. But this even makes it interesting from a writing pov.
Yeah I don’t see why anyone thinks this should be controversial.
Also, not for nothing, but maybe he learned something from Project Greenlight and being called out?https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/matt-damon-project-greenlight-effie-851656/
The Greenlight incident is what came to my mind when I read this headline.
Which, hey, good for them, growth is nice.
“Growth is nice.”That’s what she said!“She” being a woman who noticed some maturing in her male co-worker and wanted to be encouraging.
People may write for specific characters in TV writers rooms, which I assumed may be happening here. So if I already guessed this was the case, does that mean the click bait-y headline didn’t work?
Try reading the article there stud, then when you realize how asinine your post is, you are more than welcome to delete it.
So now its a bad thing to have women writing for female characters?
JFC make up your damn mind already.
Sometimes I just want to give up on progressive media, they fucking move the goalposts all the time for clicks
Did we read the same thing? Wait do you even bother to read this?
This article does start out with that intent, like it’s building towards how it would be bad for a woman to write female characters.Rather this whole article could have been written completely different to give it a whole other tone rather than this looming sexists surprise that didn’t come feel. But then it wouldn’t be click bait, which I guess was their intention. No matter how much they try to deny it.
I think it was just that the article was weirdly defensive of it as if it expected the decision to hire a female writer to write the female character to be controversial, which, why would it?
The author brings up the possibility that they could be doing it because they cant write for women parts. Then the author says its for a good cause to have different perspectives due to the content of the movie. So one could think.. so if this wasnt a movie about male/female perspective and rape then there might be a problem with them having a woman write the female parts?
The whole tone of the article makes it seem as though the author is defending them from clickbaity people who would write a spicy headline and make them look bad, yet this article and its phrasing is clearly clickbaity. They did something that should be standard and is only noteworthy because it is somewhat rare.
Wait do you even bother to read this?The AV Club
Why did Bennifer get a cute couple nickname, but Men never did?
When it was done with Falcon & Winter Soldier it made it so Anthony Mackie couldn’t just go to a bar to hang out with a guy or something.
I see what you did there…
I understand every word of this article, but it’s measured and not reactionary so I don’t understand it being on this website. Where’s the outrage? Where’s the update to the story the never publish? Where’s the missing context? I can’t get mad at this, it’s something that’s perfectly reasonable.
It’s a pilot project to see if reasonable, non-outrage stories get much engagement and if they’re worth publishing.
If you do need to get angry, may I suggest remembering that the site said, in as many words, that Ellie Kemper had a problematic past because she was part of a beauty pageant that existed long before she was born, and never apologised to her for it? Because I think that still has some angry juice left in it.
NERD RAGE!
“if you wanted to be a little unfair and clickbait-y—they only wrote for the male characters and hired Nicole Holofcener to write for the female character”Why would that be unfair or clickbaity? It’s exactly what happens, and it’s fine? One of the main complaints about sexism in film is that female characters are often written by men and end up being one-dimensional. So they’ve hired a female writer to write the main female character so she can be authentic and not some flat, man-chasing object. I can live with that.
I mean, there’s an argument to be made that if you bring a woman in and only get her tow rite the female perspective, you’re suggesting that’s all she can write. Is she getting a chance to script action scenes, scenes that show men and women’s perspectives, scenes that don’t foreground one gender or another? Or is she just told to stick to her section?
I think that would be kind of a bullshit argument, tbh. It’s their movie and they want to write it, but they’re wanting to make the female character authentic so they brought in a woman. It would be different if it were a produce who consistently brought in men to write the majority of it and women to write the women and never hired women to write a whole movie.
To be fair, they did try writing the woman’s perspective first. They tried wickud hahd.