The Last Duel (2021)
The Last Duel is a 2021 historical drama set in 14th-century France. It follows Jean de Carrouges, who challenges his former friend Jacques le Gris to a judicial duel after Marguerite de Carrouges accuses Jacques of assaulting her. The story is told in three chapters from different perspectives, gradually revealing conflicting versions of the same events.
Narrative Score
Full Plot & Ending Explained
Intro
14th-century France: Jean de Carrouges, a proud but financially strained knight, and Jacques Le Gris, his once-close friend and fellow nobleman, serve in the orbit of Count Pierre d’Alençon while Jean marries Marguerite de Thibouville for her promised dowry and hopes of restoring his fortunes. Their friendship is already under strain from money, status, land disputes, and Pierre’s favoritism toward Jacques.
Turning Point 1
Jean is denied the estate of Aunou-le-Faucon after Pierre seizes it to cover Robert de Thibouville’s debts and gives it to Jacques, deepening Jean’s resentment. Jean appeals to King Charles VI and fails, then suffers another humiliation when Pierre places Jacques in a post tied to the Carrouges family after Jean’s father dies, leaving Jean convinced that Jacques and Pierre are both working against him.
Turning Point 2
After Jean and Jacques briefly reconcile at a celebration, Jacques becomes fixated on Marguerite, misreading her polite attention as romantic interest. Jean goes to Scotland on military service and returns still in debt and frustrated, while Marguerite manages the household well in his absence and begins to understand the estate and the peasants better than Jean does.
Turning Point 3
When Marguerite is left alone at the castle, Jacques visits under false pretenses, forces his way in emotionally and physically, and rapes her after she rejects him. He warns her not to tell Jean, but she later reports the assault to her husband, who is first incredulous, then enraged, and finally decides to challenge Jacques to a judicial duel after legal appeals fail.
Turning Point 4
The film then replays the same chain of events from Jacques’s perspective, presenting his version as mutual attraction and misunderstanding, but it still ends with him entering Marguerite’s chamber and having sex with her after she resists and protests. This second version also shows how Jacques benefits from courtly favor, while Jean is increasingly isolated, politically weakened, and unable to secure justice through ordinary means.
Turning Point 5
In Marguerite’s account, the assault is shown plainly as rape, and her testimony becomes the moral center of the story. She is interrogated harshly, risks being executed if Jean loses the duel, and refuses to recant even though the social and legal system is stacked against her, making clear that her accusation is an act of extreme courage rather than a political tactic.
Ending
On the day of the trial by combat, Jean and Jacques fight brutally before a large crowd; Jean is nearly killed, but Marguerite’s insistence on the truth and Jean’s determination allow him to finally overpower Jacques, pin him down, and win the duel. Jacques is executed afterward, and Jean and Marguerite survive, but the ending emphasizes that Marguerite’s testimony and endurance mattered more than Jean’s victory, exposing the violence and injustice of the system they were trapped in.
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