June 29, 2023

Day: 29, Movie:29

I always love Helen Mirren. I have also always loved Jim Broadbent. Putting these two iconic British actors together in a film had to be a great idea.

Thankfully, it was.

According to Rotten Tomatoes, “In 1961, Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent), a 60-year old taxi driver, stole Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. It was the first (and remains the only) theft in the Gallery’s history. Kempton sent ransom notes saying that he would return the painting on condition that the government invested more in care for the elderly — he had long campaigned for pensioners to receive free television. What happened next became the stuff of legend. Only 50 years later did the full story emerge — Kempton had spun a web of lies. The only truth was that he was a good man, determined to change the world and save his marriage.”

Jim Broadbent has never been more charming than he was here in this Don Quixote-type story of a man who fought for little things. But there was more to the story than his mission to get free television in Britain. His wife Lilya (Helen Mirren) and he had lost a daughter in a bicycle accident and they had never dealt with that loss together. The film was as much, if not more, about grief than it was about any fight for justice.

Based on a true story, The Duke does what British films do wonderfully well, provide an oddball character, play it for some witty laughs and be filled with heart. The Duke may be a tad sentimental, but the central performances here are so good that any drawbacks the film may have are overlooked.