‘An open championship should be open to everyone...’
Like Inspector Goole, I don’t play golf. But I’m constantly having to hear about it from friends of mine that do play. The exclusionary, hostile nature of the game makes it (very) easy to send up, but it is more difficult to turn that into a 90 minute feature film (Happy Gilmore aside). Director and actor Craig Roberts has form in this area having already appeared in Amazon Prime’s vastly underrated golf comedy Red Oaks, he also has experience in the exploration of people on the edge of society, having already directed Just Jim and Eternal Beauty – both of which took odd, isolated characters and imbued them with warmth and personality. The Phantom of the Open is Roberts’ best film, the film in which all of these disparate elements come together to make a whole…
When his menial job at an industrial works comes under threat, Maurice Flitcroft (Mark Rylance) makes the unconventional jump to professional golf – despite having never played the game before in his life. With the support of his wife Jean (Sally Hawkins) and his twin sons James and Gene (Jonah and Christian Lees respectively), Maurice Flitcroft defies all the odds to become… the worst golf player ever to compete in the British open.
A fairly formulaic underdog story on the surface then, but Roberts, directing from a script from Simon Farnaby, focuses on the minutia of family life and the dangers of unchecked optimism to create something quite wonderful. Rylance throws himself into the role with gusto, featuring in almost every scene, and his chemistry with Hawkins and the rest of the cast that make up the Flitcroft family is vital to ensuring that The Phantom of the Open remains compelling throughout.
As an actor and a director, Roberts has preferred to skirt around the edges of the entertainment industry, The Phantom of the Open might be the film that sends him mainstream.