In Movie MAGic, we review films with art or artist-related themes from Hollywood biopics to foreign art house movies, and rate them for you with our own Visitor Service scale of difficulty;
EASY
Straight forward plot, easy to follow and entertaining. Requires little thought. Sunday afternoon, stuff. Starring actors you’ve probably heard of. Definitely no subtitles.
MODERATE
Nothing too scary, possibility of subtitles, but still a straight forward, average length film; no explosions or car chases, but a high chance of intense emotional grimacing and moody silences. Might possibly be in black and white, which could just mean that’s it’s old rather than arty.
DIFFICULT
Might have a challenging length, non-linear story structure, avant-garde cinematography or mature themes (sexuality, nudity, etc). High probability of subtitles. Afterwards, you’ll feel like you’ve earned a good stiff drink, or a box set binge of light comedy to cheer yourself up.
Today’s movie offering is-
The Duke (2021)
Starring: Jim Broadbent (him from Bridget Jones’ Diary, Harry Potter, Vera Drake, Paddington), Helen Mirren (her from Prime Suspect, Gosford Park, Calendar Girls, The Queen, Excalibur) Fion Whitehead (him from Dunkirk, Black Mirror, The Children Act), Anna Maxwell Martin (her from Motherland, Good Omens, Line of Duty), Matthew Goode ( him from Watchmen, Downton Abbey, The Crown).
Written by: Richard Bean, Clive Coleman
Directed by: Roger Mitchell
Running time: 96 Minutes
Jim Broadbent as Kempton Bunyan in The Duke (Sony Pictures Classics)
In 1961, Kempton Bunton, a 60-year-old Newcastle taxi driver, and local campaigner for free TV licences for the elderly, stole Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London; the first -and only- theft in the Gallery’s history. Hiding the painting in the spare bedroom, Bunton sent ransom notes demanding that the government make TV licences free for old aged pensioners as a condition for the painting’s return. The film follows his struggle against a faceless bureaucracy, the judicial system and the grief buried at the heart of his own marriage.
Based on a true story, this isn’t the kind of heist movie where you spend the film watching the masterminds plot the robbery before the climactic theft, although it does make ironic use of the split-screen editing, often used in 60s films like the art heist movie The Thomas Crown Affair. This is a much gentler affair; a crime caper with a loveable rogue at its centre. Not so much Ocean’s Eleven as Tyne’s One.
Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) is what we might call a ‘social justice warrior’ today, standing up for those around him and being jailed not paying his TV license on principle. On first seeing Goya’s painting of the Duke of Wellington, bought for the Nation at a cost of £140,000, he doesn’t trot out the jingoist myth of the man, but immediately rails against the Duke of Wellington’s appalling mistreatment of his men and his time as Prime Minister.
But at the heart of the story is the tension within the Buntons’ marriage. Kempton Bunton is struggling to come to terms with the loss of their daughter in a cycling accident years before, while Kempton’s wife, Dorothy (Helen Mirren hiding her light under a bushel to play a world-weary stoic) refuses to face it.
Kempton himself is an unreliable narrator, losing jobs, not telling his wife and sitting in libraries all day until it’s time to ‘clock off’. On receiving the ransom note for the painting, a police hand-writing specialist profiles its author as ‘a fantasist who believes he is an idealist.’ As loveable as Kempton’s character is, you can’t help but feel the sting of bitter truth in the assessment.
But it’s in the court scenes where Broadbent shines, bringing a mischievous but impassioned spirit as he jousts with the Establishment to the delight of the public gallery (and we could all do with a bit more of that energy these days). It’s the kind of film that Ealing Studios used to do so well and that you thought nobody made any more.
VS Verdict: Easy.
You can catch The Duke on Amazon Prime (correct at the time of posting).
TheDuke (2022) Official Trailer (c) BSC/Pathe UK/Sony Pictures Classics