This is a biopic of Maurice Flitcroft, a working-class man from Barrow-in-Furness who decides to take up golf. It's a middle-class sport, and he's not at all good at it, but he pushes himself forward to compete in the British Open.
It's got all the usual "plucky underdog" themes going on, and the very British celebration of people who keep going even though they aren't very good. Think Eddie the Eagle, or even Cool Runnings, even though that's about Jamaicans.
The film is from 2021 but it looks like it was made in the 1970s, gloomy and with bleached out colours. There's some stuff about class in it - none of it very profound; sometimes the film seems to be laughing at Flitcroft and his working-class manners, not with him.
There is a spot in the last 30 minutes that is slightly better, with a bit of focus on family dynamics and whether Flitcroft's obsession with pursuing your dream no matter what is really good advice (his twin sons aim to become disco dancing champions, but the international competitions in which they take part falter and fade). But this moment doesn't last long, and soon slides into more sentimentality and triumph-over-adversity stuff.
What was Mark Rylance thinking?
This was on BBC iPlayer but I couldn't find it, so we watched it via informal distribution. That may have further detracted, because the sound was really low.
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