Some dare to dream of sinking a 10-foot putt to win a golf tournament, but those who do usually know what golf is and have played it some. The Phantom of the Open, based on a biography of Maurice Flitcroft, suggests our hero had some fanciful dreams of starry nights and moons of golf balls, a post-midlife crisis solution to ennui and a child-like need for attention.
The movie would be far too saccharine, far too maudlin, and far too sappy without Sally Hawkins and Mark Rylance in the leads. Rylance putts around like a doting, loving, naïve family man who is being downsized or creeping towards obsolescence. A little research into Flitcroft, however, suggests a far less foolish person, someone much more self-aware, more cunning, more fabulist at heart, as if Papillion fancied himself a duffer. Hawkins fills a role that needs to accomplish little more than keep the sentimental sugar cubes from completely dissolving into this 100 minutes of sweet tea.
Lesser actors would have glazed this honey ham to the point of being candied, too rich for a stage play but too banal for a Lifetime movie. One can aspire to greatness and beyond, and the great can inspire others to emulate or follow. The rest of us must live somewhere in that bog of mundanity as the mediocrities of the world.
The movie would be far too saccharine, far too maudlin, and far too sappy without Sally Hawkins and Mark Rylance in the leads. Rylance putts around like a doting, loving, naïve family man who is being downsized or creeping towards obsolescence. A little research into Flitcroft, however, suggests a far less foolish person, someone much more self-aware, more cunning, more fabulist at heart, as if Papillion fancied himself a duffer. Hawkins fills a role that needs to accomplish little more than keep the sentimental sugar cubes from completely dissolving into this 100 minutes of sweet tea.
Lesser actors would have glazed this honey ham to the point of being candied, too rich for a stage play but too banal for a Lifetime movie. One can aspire to greatness and beyond, and the great can inspire others to emulate or follow. The rest of us must live somewhere in that bog of mundanity as the mediocrities of the world.