The Phantom at the Open 2021 by AverageMansReviews

The Phantom at the Open 2021 by AverageMansReviews

Review Time

Warning: there is flashing effects/colourful

The world's worst has never turned out so good: I will begin here; it is the 1970s; we meet Maurice Flitcroft/other aliases, they do get used in the film I just can't remember all the other names, apologies for that. [Mark Rylance] and his wife Jean Flitcroft [Sally Hawkins] and Sons Mike Flitcroft; which works at the same place as his father, just much higher, [Jack Davis,] Gene Flitcroft  [Christian Lees] and James Flitcroft  [Jonah Lees.] Now as Maurice has been putting his family first and making sure that they are okay, as he is just to be made redundant from his job as a shipyard crane operative. So his wife gives him permission for the first time in lots of years to put himself first, but he has no idea what to do until one night he sits on the TV remote and witnesses this sport on TV called golf. The pacing is fluent as it has a story to tell and it just gets on with it for this 102 minute film.

Maurice Flitcroft has all the characteristics and he does put in the practice as he says “Practice is the road to perfection." But having said this he just isn't good at playing golf, as you will see throughout this film as the vast majority of the comedy comes from, for an example he uses is driver club [his opening stroke at the 1976 Open Championship] and the film puts great emphasis on it travelling a long distance, but this couldn't be further from the truth as in reality it has only travelled a very tiny distance.

The art is excellent, in particular Maurice Flitcroft's thought process in his head there are two sequences of this and both of them are really eye-catching and show great imagination.

The character developments and performances are good, but there are two performances that should really receive some form of positive awards and that is Maurice Flitcroft [Mark Rylance] and Jean Flitcroft [Sally Hawkins,] because whatever preference or type of relationship you are in, they can teach you a lot. Because they love each other and for those people that think because it was the 1970s that the man made the decisions and the woman followed, it was so not the case here, he did everything that he could for his family and she did the same just at  a different time, but based on how this film is shown wherever they ended up they were still happy, which I believe even in 2022 with everything going on in the world today, as long as you have each other and you are generally right for one another you could make something out of limited resources.

This film receives: 8/10, this film is excellent; if or when this film comes to a streaming server or blu-ray or DVD, this is one of those films that you can put on; on a lazy Sunday afternoon with the family. This film has currently 1 Nominee credited to its name; Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2022;Best International Feature; Craig Roberts.