The Phantom of the Open

Much more heartfelt than expected - pleasingly so! <em>'The Phantom of the Open'</em> is a very sweet film, with Mark Rylance being the absolutely perfect lead for it - great performance from him! I also enjoyed the humour, with many lines amusing me - including one that was lost in translation... It's a great (based on a true) story, one I had somehow never heard of even as a sports (golf much less so, admittedly) fan; I did slightly recognise the name Maurice Flitcroft though. Even if you don't follow golf, it definitely works as a standalone thing and it doesn't heavily focus on the sport anyway; much more to it. Pretty neat to see Craig Roberts direct (his third, but first I've seen) this - I remember watching him act in TV's <em>'The Story of Tracy Beaker'</em> when I was a kid. Well in, Rio Wellard!

Based on the true story of Maurice Flitcroft who was almost as bad a golfer as me, Mark Rylance is on super form. He works at the Barrow-in-Firness shipyard just as it's about to be wound down. Looking for something new to do, he alights on golf - a game he is singularly useless at. Having managed to enter the Open Championship and shoot a round of 121, just about everyone at the R&A wants to be shot of him - and so begins quite an engaging depiction of just how he tried to thwart them and play again. To be fair to Flitcroft, his golf did improve as his mantra of practice, practice, practice began to pay off. Sally Hawkins appears only sparingly, but is quite a good foil as his wife Jean and Rhys Ifans is also quite entertaining as the St. Andrew's man determined that our "phantom" should never pick up a club again. The narrative is amusing, but it also swipes at the cliquey, snobby, culture that prevailed at golf clubs unwilling to welcome a working class man. Clearly, Rylance was up for the part. He is enjoying himself and that is contagious. Maybe you wouldn't want to get into a golf buggy with him, or his slightly dodgy pal Cliff (Mark Lewis Jones) but a bit like "The Duke" (2020) it's a charming and characterful British film that does raise a smile.