The Phantom of the Open

Maurice Flitcroft works as a crane operator in a shipyard. He is well past forty and has never played golf. He watches the tournament on television and decides to enter. On the entry form he writes that he is a professional; nobody checks. In 1976 he plays the qualifying round of the British Open and takes a hundred and twenty one strokes. It is the worst round in the history of the tournament. Craig Roberts directs. Mark Rylance plays Maurice and Sally Hawkins plays his wife Jean. The story is real. Flitcroft's score was a scandal in golf and the governing body banned him from tournaments. For years he entered again under assumed names and false identities; each time he was spotted after a while and removed. The tone is not mocking. The narrative does not laugh at Flitcroft; it is about what his persistence meant to the people around him. The second strand is the family: two of his sons enter disco dancing competitions, and another is ashamed of him and trying to rise in a company. It builds working class Britain in the seventies, and the humour comes out of that. Mark Rylance never plays the character for laughs; the man is serious and stubborn, and the comedy is born of that. Who it is for: viewers who like British comedy drama and light films from real events. Who it is not for: the narrative runs in a warmed over shape, the emotional scenes are predictable, and some passages will pass a viewer by who does not know golf.