Phantom Of The Open puts a pleasantly low-key spin on a sports underdog tale

Underdog athletic tales occupy their own rich sub-genre, spanning cultures and all manner of competitive sports. Those based on true stories, however, typically tread very familiar paths of telegraphed uplift. The 1970s-set The Phantom Of The Open, though, takes an eccentric Everyman tale and spins it into a unique character study that champions the simple, satisfying idea of having fun in life.

Directed by Craig Roberts, this achingly British offering (its opening lines involve the request for a cup of tea—no milk, six sugars) is a pleasant movie of smaller stakes that, for better or worse, sidesteps inspiration in favor of more laidback reflection.

As with many British period films—rooted in real-life figures or not—The Phantom Of The Open places class under the microscope. Its story centers on Maurice Flitcroft, a crane operator in the blue-collar port town of Barrow-in-Furness who lives a simple life with his wife Jean (Sally Hawkins) and twin teenage sons Gene and James (Christian and Jonah Lees). Advised of impending layoffs by his adult stepson Michael (Jake Davies), who works as a manager at the same shipyard, Maurice ponders his occupational future. Encouraged by Jean to seek his own passion after years of sacrifice for their family, Maurice settles rather randomly upon golf, merely by stumbling across a match on television.

He casually takes up the sport despite having never played, sets the 1976 British Open as a goal, and is accepted into the field after misfiling paperwork as a professional. Maurice goes on to shoot a historically terrible 121, in the process winning the attention of journalists who sense a compelling human interest story. This outing bemuses TV viewers but confounds and agitates Keith Mackenzie (Rhys Ifans), the officious secretary of one of the sport’s governing bodies.

Ergo, after this stunt, Maurice finds himself on the receiving end of a carefully manufactured Catch-22, barred from certain public golf courses as an air-quote professional but unable to practice enough to rightfully earn pro status. Unbowed, Maurice takes a job as a janitor to earn money for a private club membership, and a couple years later crashes the Open once more—this time posing as mustachioed Frenchman Gerard Hoppy.

Adapted by Paddington 2 co-screenwriter Simon Farnaby from his own biographical book, The Phantom Of The Open takes the many colorful details of this true story and gives them an interesting frame. In fact, a decent portion of the movie’s appeal lies not merely in the story it tells but in the strands of rumination it inspires.

An economical six-minute opening credits sequence not only venerates Maurice by establishing his family-in-a-box courtship of single mother Jean, but also reflects upon his childhood, in which a sense of broader opportunity in life—studying music and the arts—gets foreclosed upon by the end of World War II. After the conflict, young Maurice returns from Scotland to a pre-scripted life in his one-industry burgh, and this brief set-up plants all of the seeds for Maurice’s entire personality of affable, shrugging acquiescence.

Rylance translates this core trait into Maurice’s placid mien throughout. When mocked as the world’s worst golfer, the strongest reaction he can muster is, “Well, I don’t agree with that.” Crucially, even though Maurice behaves in ways that might label him a wily conman or a rascally rebel, the character is neither, instead just occupying the space of a rolling hill through which the river of life cuts its own path. Rylance, also a producer on the project, understands that Maurice’s embrace of golf is decidedly part of a reawakened impulse rather than an existential crisis, and his rope-a-dope performance reflects the difference between the two, slowly coaxing sympathy out of viewers.

This makes The Phantom Of The Open something atypical, and, in its own small way, maybe even a bit radical. The closest comparison story-wise is 2016’s Eddie The Eagle, which also celebrated the athletic endeavors of a last-place finisher in an expensive sport for which he was financially ill-equipped. While the films share a target of disdain in the bureaucracies which seek to belittle or otherwise confine the dreams of their subjects, The Phantom Of The Open otherwise largely doesn’t concern itself with Maurice getting “better,” or even receiving much public validation for his efforts. That changes a little bit in the film’s home stretch, but for much of its running time the biggest dramatic driver is actually an exploration of blended-family dynamics, and how life lessons—even in a loving unit—can be absorbed quite differently. If not exactly neutered, the movie does lack both conventional propulsive narrative energy and much in the way of grand catharsis. It is instead a portrait, and soft endorsement, of unexceptional and quotidian joys.

Welsh actor-turned-director Roberts (Eternal Beauty) capably identifies this as The Phantom Of The Open’s thesis, and wisely hitches his movie’s interrogation of it to his performers. While that mainly manifests as a solid vehicle for Rylance, the other actors ably convey the complementary flavors of exasperation, embarrassment, and support—with the Lees brothers especially bringing a sense of joyful irreverence to their young, disco-loving characters, who most robustly embrace Maurice’s reach-for-the-stars advice.

One of the surprises of the film, though, lies in its telling, which features lively and imaginative camerawork from cinematographer Kit Fraser. Indulging low-key, distinctive framing and occasional rapid push-ins (on a ringing phone, for instance) help give the movie some goosing moments of visual levity.

Roberts stumbles a bit, however, in integrating instances of subjective fantasy. Sometimes these are communicated in slight flashes of color and dreams of fantastical flight, and there are a couple Alice In Wonderland-type sequences of wonderment, with Maurice cavorting next to a giant golf tee. The problem is these bits feel too sporadically applied, and thus come across as affected add-ons rather than creative storytelling extensions. Additionally, the use of various foot-tapping tunes (“Build Me Up Buttercup,” “Ride Like The Wind,” “Nothing From Nothing”) sometimes create an expectation for the movie that the rest of its narrative isn’t really trying to satisfy.

Overall, The Phantom of the Open is a fairly engaging and whimsical comedy-drama, and a movie which should certainly land well with Anglophiles. By refusing to peddle packaged inspiration, it takes the real-life story of an unusual and idiosyncratic man and extracts more thoughtful lessons.