The Duel

Paul Sarossy/High Line Pictures

Dover Koshashvili's The Duel is a slow burn. He films Anton Chekhov's celebrated short story with such grace that we never notice him ratcheting up the tension.

The Duel follows a conscience-ravaged adulterer named Ivan Laevsky (a pitch-perfect Andrew Scott) as he faces a wholly unexpected choice: whether to make an honest woman out of his newly widowed lover—he's just learned that her husband, who's been away for years, is dead—or to flee to St. Petersburg. If he does the latter, he'll leave behind his illicit relationship, but he'll also leave his lover penniless and stigmatized.

It's exactly the kind of moral problem Chekhov (himself both a Christian and a guilt-wracked "other man") found so compelling, and Koshashvili finds some beautiful ways to dramatize it. Fiona Glascott is remarkable as Nadia, Laevsky's lover. She's a troubled character but not a conscienceless one. As her reputation becomes more public, it becomes more lurid, until one dangerous man becomes convinced that she's a prostitute near the end of the film.