Page 12 - aruba-today-20220606

a12 people & arts
Monday 6 June 2022

Mark Rylance brings his quirky

brilliance to golfing tale

By JOCELYN NOVECK
AP National Writer
As one of our most talent-
ed living actors on screen
or stage, Mark Rylance cer-
tainly knows how to speak
beautifully. But sometimes
it seems the essence of his
acting emerges in those
blank seconds between
words.
He hems, he haws, he
pauses, he hesitates. He's
never afraid of leaving a
few beats of dead space,
and it keeps us off guard This image released by Sony Pictures Classics shows Mark
— often making us forget Rylance as Maurice Flitcroft, right, and Mark Lewis Jones as Cliff
we're hearing lines from a in a scene from "The Phantom of the Open."
script. Associated Press
Rylance is also one of those poignancy to what could mounts and is catapulted
few actors who can power have been a formulaic from an actual tee — as if
an entire film, and "The part (with occasionally he were a golf ball.
Phantom of the Open" def- gooey dialogue). You also Soon, Jean is helping him
initely rides on the strength have a fun soundtrack full fill out entry forms to the
of his signature quirky en- of period pop references Open. Adorably, neither
ergy as it tells the true-life and original music by Iso- of them know what "handi-
story of Maurice Flitcroft, bel Waller-Bridge. cap" means so they decide
a shipyard crane operator Yet with all that going for to disclose his false teeth
from northern England who them, director Craig Rob- and "a touch of arthritis."
stunned the golfing world in erts and writer Simon Farn- When his application ar-
1976 by entering the British aby don't ever truly show rives, supercilious tourna-
Open under false pretens- us why Flitcroft did what ment authorities assume
es — he'd never played a he did. What was the drive nobody would be stupid
round of golf — and shoot- behind his, er, drives? He enough to say they're a
ing the worst qualifying was clearly serious, but why golf pro if they're not.
round in Open history. Then golf, something he'd never So the ruse begins. It does
he entered a bunch more attempted in his half cen- not go well, but at the end
times, under false names tury on earth? The film is so of an amusing day, a TV
and in disguise, earning folk entertaining, it pretty much announcer intones: "The
hero status along the way. gets away without explor- day belongs to Maurice."
But Flitcroft wasn't joking. ing the question. For most of the world, it's
He truly believed he had In an opening sequence a fun joke. Flitcroft himself
a chance, and he had recapping Flitcroft's life up is insulted by that assump-
undying support from his to 1975, we learn that ship- tion. He will be back, he
wife, Jean, who urged him yard work was the only op- promises: "Practice is the
to follow his dreams. As tion for a young working- road to perfection."
did two of his sons, whom class man in Barrow-in-Fur- A journalist latches onto the
he encouraged to do the ness at the northwest tip of story and suddenly Mau-
same — they were global England. But when, at age rice is the "Phantom of the
disco dancing champions 46, social conditions imperil Open." A montage of his
(yes, we said disco danc- his career, his wife urges media notoriety is accom-
ing champions.) him to find a new dream. panied by a hugely enter-
So you have a great real- Watching telly one day, taining dance sequence
life story and one of the he happens on a golf tour- to the strains of Abba's
world's best actors to tell nament. Something clicks "Money, Money, Money."
it, along with the marvel- in his brain. The moment But golf authority Keith
ous Sally Hawkins as Jean, is captured in a dream Mackenzie — a terrifically
who brings shading and sequence where Flitcroft stuck-up Rhys Ifans — is furi-
ous. He bans Flitcroft from
joining any golf clubs. Also,
older son Mike, who is up-
wardly mobile at the ship-
yard, is deeply ashamed.
But Jean remains ever true.
"How do you think Jack
Nicholson would have
done if he'd taken up golf
at 50?" she asks support-
ively. Maurice corrects her
gently: "Jack Nicklaus."q