Last night I went to my favorite art house theater, for the second night in a row, to see the charming British comedy The Duke. It is based on the true story of the theft of Francisco de Goya's portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in 1961. Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent), a retired bus driver from Newcastle who is also an aspiring playwright, feels tremendous guilt over the death of his daughter several years earlier and is compelled to do something for the good of mankind to assuage that guilt. His chosen cause is a campaign against making pensioners and war veterans pay for a license to watch television. His long suffering wife Dorothy (Helen Mirren) begs him to stop all of his nonsense but he requests one last trip to London to bring attention to his message. When he is turned away from the BBC, The Daily Mirror, and Parliament, he impulsively steals the painting in order to blackmail the government into exempting the less fortunate from paying for a license as a condition to get it back. He enlists the help of his son Jackie (Fionn Whitehead) to hide it but, after a few misadventures, he decides to return it after which he is arrested. When his trial at the Old Bailey begins, his barrister (Matthew Goode) tells him that his case is hopeless but he unexpectedly becomes a hero to the common man. The narrative has a few twists and turns to keep it from being completely predictable and both Broadbent and Mirren give stellar performances full of wit and charm. I found many scenes to be highly amusing and I laughed out loud several times (I love British humor). I also really enjoyed the retro vibe in the cinematography because it looks like actual footage from the 1960s. This is a lighthearted feel-good movie and watching it was a delightful experience (I was in a theater full of people twenty years older than me).
No comments:
Post a Comment