Jodie’s big new role:
should she mind the age gap?
WE’VE BEEN DESPERATE to find out what Jodie Comer’s next big post-killing Eve role will be. So the internet was abuzz last week when it was announced that, next year, she will star opposite Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in The Last Duel. It’s more than 20 years since Affleck, 47, and Damon, 49, first shared the screen in 1997’s Good Will Hunting. But, when that Oscar-winning hit was in cinemas, Comer was four years old. And, now 26, she is not playing the daughter of either man in this film, but the wife of one of them. When an MTV reporter noted the age gap, Comer joked, ‘I’m going to bring that up. I’ll let you know how that goes down. Probably lose my job.’ But maybe it’s time to talk seriously about age gaps.
What’s depressing is how unsurprising this is. Hollywood takes it as read that female love interests will be younger than male stars, often by a significant amount. The age gap between Tom Cruise and his on-screen loves has increased steadily as he has aged: it now hovers around 18 years. Maggie Gyllenhaal, at 37, was told she was ‘too old’ to play the girlfriend of an action star in his fifties, and Olivia Wilde starred opposite Liam Neeson in The Third Person despite a 32-year age gap.
Of course, in real life women sometimes date older men and, in individual cases, the heart wants what it wants. But the intergenerational love shown on-screen, almost always an older man and younger woman, indicates some toxic tendencies. It’s the primacy of youth over experience for actresses, and the struggle for women over 30 or so to find a wide selection of work. It’s evidence of how undemanding many of these roles are: they require no experience. And it suggests that established male stars demand, or at least welcome, the suggestion that they can still pull hot young women, whatever their age. It might distract female viewers from the story but it seems ego trumps realism.
Affleck and Damon are far from the worst offenders: they’re probably hyped to star opposite Villanelle from Killing Eve and not analysing it any further. And none of this is to criticise Comer for taking the part. ‘I loved the script,’ she said of the film, which was co-written by Damon, Affleck and female film-maker Nicole Holofcener. ‘The character is this remarkable woman who risked her own life and reclaimed her life.’ Set in medieval times,
Comer’s character is married to one star and accuses the other, her husband’s friend, of raping her, leading to a trial by combat. If her husband wins, his best friend must die; if the man she accused wins, her own life is forfeit as a liar.
Such a dramatic film could be a huge step forward at this early stage in her film career. Comer will also star in next year’s Free Guy, opposite Ryan Reynolds, about a man who discovers he’s a character in a video game. Though the role of ‘Molotov Girl’ doesn’t seem destined to launch her to the top of the A-list, a well-received performance in The Last Duel directed by Ridley Scott just might.
Still, given that this film is set when life was nasty, brutish and short, maybe younger leading men should have been cast, or an older woman, so that everyone looks equally worn down by the hard times and lack of decent skincare. But give or take this movie, we have to change the assumption that young women belong with older men. When we’re chiefly valued for our youth, we’re always faced with a losing proposition because, inevitably, it fades. After all, we all want the talented Jodie Comer to be working for decades to come.