There is a class-based cinema tradition in the British Isles of comedies about battlers against the odds, be they a coal-mining brass band, a boy who dreams of ballet, steelworkers turned strippers or queer ’80s activists. Their ambitions may be outsized, but with grit, unquestionable talent and local , by golly, they’ll get there.

The Phantom of the Open delightfully subverts this trope by making our working-class hero, Maurice Flitcroft, just not very good in the first place, as he worms his way into one of the establishment’s most strictly controlled sports. Convinced that he is destined for greater things, Flitcroft (Mark Rylance) declares himself a professional golfer, gains entry to the sport’s oldest competition, the Open Championship (dubbed the British Open), and putts his way to the worst-ever score in the tournament’s history, with the stolid of his beloved wife, Jean (Sally Hawkins).

There’s more, much more, to this charmingly bonkers true story, including disco-dancing twins, both Paddingtons, and to British comedy fans as a cast member of shows such as The Mighty Boosh and Horrible Histories. He is also a prolific writer (Paddington 2, many television series, several children’s books). Having been enthralled with Flitcroft’s story for years, he adapted The Phantom of the Open from his own 2010 biography, co-written with sports writer Scott Murray.

Playing Flitcroft, English theater stalwart and Oscar winner Rylance brings a winning sincerity to a man many would regard as a con artist. On Letterboxd, Craig Roberts for the way he “rightly instructs Mark Rylance to play the central character completely straight-faced, never allowing him to mock himself”. And while the film doesn’t roundly criticize the sport of golf itself, Steve continues, Roberts “picks his targets carefully, has the specter of incoming Thatcherism and conservative journalism lurking and smirking patronizingly in the background”.

I want to start by reading you some Letterboxd reviews of The Phantom of the Open, which have been mounting up since the film’s world premiere at the London Film Festival last October. “Only Craig Roberts could make me cry during a film about golf,” writes G, while John, who gave it four stars, says it “would’ve been really good if it wasn’t about golf”.
Craig Roberts: Gee, I’m sorry!

Simon Farnaby: Well, can I comment on those?

Yes, please. Please. We’d love that. 
SF: Firstly, well, it’s really not a film about golf. I mean, obviously people have said that, so that is that. But not for us, not for me—and I say that as I love golf. I grew up around golf, my dad was a greenkeeper and that was my childhood so I’m not ashamed of it. [Golf] is really a backdrop to a man and his philosophy, and a story about a family and trying to achieve your dreams. I think people have this idea of golf of, sort of, Donald Trump, and men with stuffy blazers and then go, “I don’t like that”. But it sounds like they enjoyed the film anyway, so I just don’t want people to be put off. It’s not about golf. It’d be really boring if it was. “Golf was invented in 1837…”

The film has a fantasy television sequence, after Maurice sees golf on a TV set for the first time, which really highlights the importance of color television in working-class households in the early seventies.
CR: That changed the game, right? When he saw it on the color television.

SR: Yeah. I got hold of his unpublished autobiography and there was a huge section on that television. He was so pleased to have this television that his stepson had bought him. When he saw golf for the first time, he talked about the colors of the jumpers. There was page upon page of, “I love the tros and I love the checks and I love the hair of these people with blond hair and the green grass of the green…” That’s why we have the shot when he first goes to the golf course and he touches the ground and he sniffs it.

Who are your favorite lovable losers in films?
CR: My favorite would be Barry Egan from Punch-Drunk Love. Adam Sandler plays him. He’s very lovable. He’s just wonderful. I could watch twenty seasons of that, really. Such a fantastic film. Paddington. Paddington is a good one.

SF: Paddington is a good loser.

CR: I should have said that first, really, shouldn’t I?

SF: Ah, it’s such a great question. Hal Hartley wrote this film called Trust, which is one of my first… it’s like in my top two films. Probably my favorite film of all time. But there’s a character there that Martin Donovan plays, who’s this complete loser who meets another loser in the woods, and they have this amazing friendship. And I suppose I’ve always liked losers. Then there’s some—Peter Sellers’ character, Chauncey Gardner [in Being There]—that appear like losers, but they’re savants. I’m drawn to those sort of characters that are a little bit like Maurice, I guess.

Being There is one of my all time faves, so thank you for that. What are your favorite weirdly joyous films? I ask that based on Danny B’s Phantom of the Open review: “There’s something weirdly joyous about seeing this deranged man with no skill in golf attempt to compete against all these champions and failing miserably.” I just love that concept of “weirdly joyous”, and the transcendent feeling that you give us viewers.
SF: This is very recent: a Danish film called Another Round…

CR: Oh yeah.

SF: …with Mads Mikkelsen. What I like, it’s not a comedy but it is really funny. Sets out quite funny, but gets quite dark. And then at the end suddenly where you’re going, “Where’s this film going now? What’s…” And then you have the dance, this incredibly joyous sort of drunken dance around the place that I just wept with. I was like, “What a great film!” It was like a debate about alcohol and it didn’t say “it’s all terrible” and it didn’t say “it’s all great”. It was a mixture. And then at the end it was like a big blast of happiness, and I thought, “That was weirdly happy.”

So let’s take a minute to talk about Sally Hawkins. I mean, she’s a real one and, indeed, Jean Flitcroft is the real MVP of Maurice’s story. You’ve both worked with Sally multiple times. She’s Mrs. Brown in Paddington for goodness’ sake! What is her magic? What’s it like being on set with Sally?
CR: Oh, it’s everything. Every movie, she’d have it. Unfortunately, she doesn’t do a lot of movies and that’s why we’re very lucky and grateful that she came to play here.

SF: You have to have two people who she likes for her to be in a movie.

CR: That’s the rule.

SF: Thankfully, she likes us both.

CR: Yeah. I don’t know anybody that works harder, to be honest. I just think she gets so involved and she has so many great ideas and she’s a wonderful writer as well, outside of acting. She’s wonderful.

SF: She’s incredibly witty and funny in real life, which maybe not many people know. She’s hilarious.

CR: Oh she’s very funny.

SF: But can also do really moving stuff. I love your “MVP” description of Jean because that really is… Maurice is nothing without her. He would’ve just collapsed immediately. She propped him up and she was like, “Keep going. This is your dream and you deserve it.” And was his rock. And that speech that was alluded to from your reviewer, that is verbatim. That’s exactly what Maurice said in Michigan. That’s word for word about, “She’s a magician and she’s the sugar in my tea and I love her very much.” All that was actually pasted into Maurice’s autobiography, and then one of the reviewers in the UK said it was a bit saccharine and I was like, “Well, that’s what he said.”

That’s very sweet. I believe that’s our time, but I just thought, Craig, I’d get you to read a couple more reviews.
CR: “Cried my fucking eyes out on row H”—Hannah, five stars.

SF: I love that. So specific about where, like, that matters.

CR: Okay: “I certainly didn’t have a film about golf near moving me to tears on my 2022 checklist. A hole in one for Craig Roberts.”—Christopher. Christopher, you’re a legend. Thank you very much. That’s so nice.

SF: Wow. Thanks for the Letterboxd and everyone who writes stuff.