MATTHEW BOND

There are some films that try just that little bit too hard to make you like them, performing the cinematic equivalent of a puppy rolling on its back and inviting you to tickle its tummy.

And that turns out to be the problem with The Phantom Of The Open, a new British comedy that retells the long-forgotten story of Maurice Flitcroft, the Northern crane operator who, in 1976, successfully entered the British Open Golf championship despite the fact he could barely play the game. His score of 121 for the first qualifying round was the worst in major championship history.

It’s a good story, albeit remarkably similar in basic structure – Northern grit takes on snobby British Establishment – to The Duke, another British comedydrama that came out a few weeks ago and told the story of a Newcastle taxi driver who stole a portrait of the Duke of Wellington in 1961.

But while The Duke had Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren on top form, this has Sally Hawkins, being perfectly good but, in the pivotal role of Flitcroft himself, the normally excellent Mark Rylance on this occasion giving it way too much.

Coming dangerously close to depicting Flitcroft as some sort of Cumbrian Forrest Gump, it’s a tick-and-teeth-driven performance that seems to have been assembled from bits left over from performances he’s given before.

Bit of BFG here, bit of nice brave boat-owner from Dunkirk there, surprising bit of philosophical Russian spy from Bridge Of Spies somewhere in between.

I’m sure others – understandably in the mood for something lightweight, undemanding and undeniably funny – will be more forgiving, but it drove me slightly mad.

But there are compensations to a film with enjoyably evocative 1970s production design and crowdpleasing parallels to the likes of Eddie The Eagle and Dream Horse.

Simon Farnaby’s screenplay appreciates the value of silliness, never avoids an obvious joke (listen out for the groan-worthy one about ‘handicap’) and gets full comic value from the serendipitous fact that Flitcroft’s supportive teenage sons really did become international disco-dancing champions. You couldn’t make it up.

Listen carefully because I don’t want to mislead anyone. The mini