If Maurice Flitcroft hadn’t really existed, a British comedy would surely have invented him. A humble shipyard worker from Barrow-in-Furness who decided, on a rogue middle-aged whim, to enter the British Open despite never having played a round of golf in his life, he was practically a living, breathing Ealing Studios hero. That he managed to repeat the feat multiple times in multiple disguises over the years, earning himself the title of “the world’s worst professional golfer,” tips a real life into the realm of absurdity.
It’s tempting to say, then, that anyone taking on a Flitcroft biopic has a large part of the work done for them. The jokes write themselves, though in “The Phantom of the Open,” screenwriter Simon Farnaby and director Craig Roberts make them sweeter and spryer than they could have been, while a wide-eyed, bucket-hatted Mark Rylance plays Flitcroft with abundant generosity of spirit.
It’s tempting to say, then, that anyone taking on a Flitcroft biopic has a large part of the work done for them. The jokes write themselves, though in “The Phantom of the Open,” screenwriter Simon Farnaby and director Craig Roberts make them sweeter and spryer than they could have been, while a wide-eyed, bucket-hatted Mark Rylance plays Flitcroft with abundant generosity of spirit.
- 10/20/2021
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
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