Determined to keep this embarrassing transgression secret, McKenzie urges Maurice to “quietly gather up your things.” But word gets out, and a PR battle ensues between the two men, with McKenzie intent on banning the gleeful culprit from all clubs across the U.K. Ifans’ atypical turn as the punctilious walkie-talkie-wielding McKenzie is just the right counterpoint to the relentless optimism Rylance channels, even after Maurice gleans that “open” is not a literal description. He adds an argyle vest to his wardrobe, wearing it beneath his work clothes like a secret superhero costume.Īt the Open, Maurice quickly proves himself an unintentional affront to professionalism, tradition and propriety, leaving the other players baffled while a sympathetic reporter (Ash Tandon) sparks to a juicy story. “So shiny, aren’t they?” he enthuses about his newly purchased clubs. Maurice, meanwhile, learns the sport’s lingo and buys whatever gear he can afford. His guileless letter to a TV sportscaster asking how to sign up for the tournament is mistaken for a note from a kid.Īnd when his scrawled entry form for the qualifying competition of the Open arrives at the organizers’ offices, a female assistant senses something odd, but it’s beyond the reckoning of her male bosses, led by Rhys Ifans’ Keith McKenzie, that anyone would call themselves a professional golfer if they’re not. With the wholehearted support of Jean and their teenage twins, disco-dancing enthusiasts Gene and James (Christian Lees and Jonah Lees), and to the exasperation of status-conscious Mike, Maurice pursues his quest to play in the 1976 Open. Triumph, fame, prize money and fresh air - seems like a good way to go to Maurice, and a lucky putt in the living room seems like a sign. Having been introduced to the newfangled wonder of a television remote, Maurice finds his new calling while channel surfing: He sees American golfer Tom Watson winning the first of his British Open titles. Jean, a no-fuss woman of enormous warmth and humility - played to perfection by Hawkins, who has made an art form of positivity - urges Maurice to seize the moment: “It’s your turn now,” she tells her husband. An opportunity to rekindle the fire of inspiration arrives in the form of bad news, courtesy of eldest son Mike (Jake Davies), a suit-and-tie man in the management tier at Vickers: The company is about to be nationalized, with massive layoffs in store. ![]() During his time in Scotland, his young eyes were opened to the idea of possibilities beyond the shipbuilding industry that dominated his hometown, the Cumbrian port of Barrow-in Furness, where all good boys were expected to follow their fathers into the business.īut as the main action begins, Maurice is in his late 40s and a long-timer at the Vickers Shipyard, his dreams of a more creative life shelved while he raised three boys with Jean (Hawkins). A key factor in Maurice’s biography is revealed in the capsule backstory delivered over the opening credits: Like many children in English cities during World War II, he was sent away, to a place where the risk of bombing wasn’t as great. ![]() When we first see Maurice, after he’s become “a legend,” his innocuous eccentricity is signaled in a preference for six sugars in his tea, that taste for sweetness matched by a childlike sense of wonder. Roberts’ interest in that equation, and in the wide world of neurodiversity, carries into the new film, with Rylance’s performance a fluctuating mix of earnest transparency and harebrained tricksterism that just skirts wise-fool twee-ness. ![]() In the helmer’s previous feature, Eternal Beauty, starring Hawkins as a woman diagnosed with schizophrenia, self-acceptance was inextricable from rebellion against convention. ![]() Screenwriter: Simon Farnaby based on the book by Farnaby and Scott Murray Cast: Mark Rylance, Sally Hawkins, Rhys Ifans
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