Comical real-life capers of an unlikely licence fee martyr
Review The Duke ★★★★★
Everything about Kempton Bunton is improbable. For one thing, his name. For another, the fact that in 1961, at the age of 57, he allegedly broke into the National Gallery in London, stole Francisco Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington, then took it home to Newcastle and hid it in a wardrobe, hoping to use it to blackmail the Macmillan government into funding free TV licences for pensioners.
Bunton’s absurd-but-true quest has the unmistakable zing of a classic Ealing caper – and it has now been wonderfully adapted by director Roger Michell and screenwriters Richard Bean and Clive Coleman into a film that could stand alongside the very best of them.
The Duke, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival last night is that rarest of things: a comedy that knows a twinkle in the eye and a fire in the belly needn’t be mutually exclusive. Though the England it depicts disappeared half a century ago, it speaks mindfully and movingly to our own divided times – asking how institutions should best serve the public that funds them, and speaking up for those who find themselves excluded by class, geography or birth. However long the 2021 Baftas and Oscars end up being postponed – the current plan is April – this wise and wry film should be a non-negotiable presence at both.
So too, in person, should be Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren, who give two of the finest performances of their careers here as Kempton and Dorothy, his wife.
The pair are soulmates in many ways and opposites in others, but both clearly learned long ago how to rub along together in curmudgeonly accord. (You can see every year of their marriage in Broadbent and Mirren’s interplay on screen.)
Dorothy is the private type – in fact, a very specific and recognisable Northern strain of it – while Kempton is a pipe-smoking Tyneside Quixote, prodding away at play scripts on his typewriter, trying to get his ongoing TV licence protest in the local paper, and bouncing between jobs, which he regularly loses thanks to some principle he refuses to set aside. (There is a tremendously funny single-scene performance by Val Mclane as his exasperated boss at a local taxi firm.)
Fionn Whitehead and Jack Bandeira play the Buntons’ grown-up sons, Jackie and Kenny, both of whom are on the brink of going officially wayward. And there is a daughter too – or rather there was one, though she’s never openly spoken about, and her photograph is kept tucked away safely in a desk drawer, out of sight.
Meanwhile, on proud display in London is Goya’s portrait of the Duke – recently acquired by the government for £140,000 with the aim of keeping it in the UK, and out of the hands of private collectors.
Nevertheless, Kempton sees an opportunity for his cause and hatches a plot, and soon enough (after a comical heist sequence) the portrait is in his spare bedroom.
A few days later, when the theft is attributed on the nightly news to a “trained commando” in the employ of an international gang, Kempton almost chokes on his ginger snap.
There is considerable fun to be had in watching Kempton’s scheme unravel, particularly since it was barely ravelled in the first place.
The film does sometimes layer on emotions like oil paint − such as the stirring sequence scored to the hymn Jerusalem. Nevertheless The Duke shows Britain hasn’t lost the ability to make quality films like this after all. We’ve had it stashed in the back of the wardrobe all along.
♦director: Roger Michell; Starring: Jim Broadbent, Helen Mirren, Fionn Whitehead, Anna Maxwell Martin, Matthew Goode, Jack Bandeira; UK release date: Early 2021; Cert: TBC; Running time: 96 mins.
‘This wise and wry film should be a nonnegotiable presence at the Oscars and Baftas’