The Phantom of the Open

Film | Cert: 12A| ★★★★✩

Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies, Don’t Look Up) and Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky, The Shape of Water) both shine in this charming biopic about amiable imposter Maurice Flitcroft, who took the world of golf by storm in the late 1970s. Actor, writer and producer Simon Farnaby (Paddington 2, Ghosts) has adapted his own biography of Flitcroft (co-written with Scott Murray) for the big screen, while the director is Craig Roberts, whom you might know as the actor who starred in the 2010 comedy Submarine (Richard Ayoade’s award-winning directorial debut).

Barrow-in-Furness, 1976. A lowly shipyard worker facing redundancy in his middle age, Maurice Flitcroft (Rylance) finds himself at a loose end with plenty of time on his hands — a luxury he’s never had before. Encouraged by his wife Jean (Hawkins) to pursue his dreams, Maurice enters the qualifiers for the Open championship, the most prestigious golf tournament in the country, and accidentally gets through, despite not having played a single round in his life.

The laughs come thick and fast as he enters into a game of cat and mouse with Keith Mackenzie (Rhys Ifans), a mirthless representative for the golfing authorities who eventually bans him from entering the Open for life. Aided by his teenage twin sons (Christian and Jonah Lees), Maurice takes it upon himself to defy the ban by repeatedly entering and qualifying for the tournament under different fake names.

There is something magical about Roberts’s film, both in the way it looks and the story it mostly succeeds in telling. The director and screenwriter Farnaby together deliver a beautifully executed ode to British eccentricity. It’s a gorgeously layered tale of optimism and triumph in the face of adversity.

Although broaching gritty social issues only in passing, this richly rewarding film manages to tell a poignant and disarmingly charming story about a man who simply refused to give up on his dreams. Elevated by a truly outstanding turn from Rylance, The Phantom of The Open is not only highly watchable: it also manages to deliver just the right amount of wide-eyed optimism without becoming needlessly saccharine.