The Phan­tom of the Open

Craig Roberts made a sol­id start to life behind the cam­era. His 2015 debut, Just Jim, was a scrap­py, dark­ly com­ic com­ing-of-ager in the Sub­ma­rine mould; his fol­low-up, 2019’s Eter­nal Beau­ty, was a per­cep­tive, sen­si­tive study of men­tal illness.

It’s there­fore sur­pris­ing – and, in this writer’s opin­ion, a stark indi­ca­tion of the cur­rent state of the British film indus­try – that this promis­ing young direc­tor has trad­ed in his lo-fi indie sen­si­bil­i­ty for some­thing more pol­ished and crowd-pleasing.

The rough edges of Roberts’ ear­li­er fea­tures have been smoothed out in this cheery biopic of a career chancer named Mau­rice Flit­croft (Mark Rylance, prov­ing that his dis­as­trous per­for­mance in Don’t Look Up was no aber­ra­tion), who conned his way into golf’s most pres­ti­gious tour­na­ment in the late 1970s. A rank ama­teur whose only real crime was dream­ing too big, Flit­croft shot a record-set­ting round of 121 dur­ing qual­i­fy­ing for the ​’76 Open Cham­pi­onship, becom­ing an overnight media sen­sa­tion in the process.

In restag­ing this scarce­ly believ­able sport­ing under­dog sto­ry, The Phan­tom of the Open taps into a par­tic­u­lar strain of col­lo­qui­al, over­ly cosy British cin­e­ma. It’s unde­mand­ing, dra­mat­i­cal­ly inert and, although class is very much on its agen­da, one-dimen­sion­al in its depic­tion of the golf­ing establishment’s stuffy elitism.

Here’s hop­ing it makes a mint and gives Roberts carte blanche to make what­ev­er the hell he wants next, because he’s too good a film­mak­er to be turn­ing out for­mu­la­ic feel­go­od fod­der like this.

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