Photo: The Phantom of the Open - Facebook
The Phantom of the Open
The Phantom of the Open
In The Phantom of the Open, Mark Rylance delivers a marvelous performance as Maurice Flitcroft, the British shipyard crane operator who made history when he bluffed his way into the 1976 British Golf Open. On that day he achieved the worst score the sport of golf had ever witnessed but became a folk hero in the U.K. and U.S. for his gatecrashing sense of humor.
Written by Simon Fornaby from his 2010 biography of Flitcroft, The Phantom of the Open tells the story of a man who thought big despite the cramped confines of his background. Born into the soot-covered brick rowhouses of a British dockyard town, he was expected to trudge to work every weekday like his father and grandfather before him. The screenplay suggests that a seed was planted in Flitcroft’s childhood. He was evacuated during World War II to the country estate of a British nobleman who encouraged him to dream.
That seed lay dormant until the mid-‘70s when Flitcroft caught word of impending layoffs at the shipyard. Blimey, time for a new career! His epiphany about pursuing golf occurred when he chanced upon a tournament on the tele, albeit the screenplay never explains why the sight of men in plaid trousers hitting white balls on a green turf inspired him. His decision to learn golf became a family affair with his twin sons testing him on the sport’s arcane argot. Handicap? “It must mean an ailment, I suppose,” Flitcroft responds. It takes time before he realizes that golf is only game where the player with the highest score is the loser.
Flitcroft begins by batting balls around his living room with a long stick. Snubbed by the county golf club, he practices in parks and beaches. He lies about his credentials and gets into the British Open, where he puts on the worst show the crowd ever saw. But the press sees a good story and his infamy eventually becomes celebrity.
The Milwaukee-reared Rylance carries the picture with a carefully crafted portrayal of the protagonist. He plays Flitcroft as inarticulately articulate, sad eyed but with a mischief-revealing smile, a man whose heart is bigger than his head. Any doubters about the wisdom of dreaming impossible dreams is made to look like a heel (or repents in the end). The drama is lightly sketched. The Phantom of the Open is mostly comedy, with several funny slapstick scenes, wrapped in a bright feel-good package by Welsh director Craig Roberts.
The Phantom of the Open is playing at the Downer Theater.
