THE DUKE (2020)

In what proved to be his last feature, the normally dependable Roger Michell (only 65 when he died in 2021) makes a rather strenuous attempt to recapture the old Ealing Studio comic spirit with the improbable true tale of Kempton Bunton, an eccentric middle-class Brit with a passion for lost causes, bad playwriting, and (possibly) art theft.  Specifically, a valuable Goya portrait of the Duke of Wellington.  Defending himself in political/philosophic terms, with whimsically excellent legal representation* (what is ownership?), his court appearances win just the sort of popular support he’s never been able to find crusading against larger injustices, like the BBC annual subscription fee.  But victory thru notoriety is still victory, even if it means jail time.  Oh, the wife may grumble between domestic employment, the two grown sons drift in & out of relationships, seasonal jobs & their old bedroom, but it’s the principle of the thing.  Jim Broadbent & Helen Mirren are splendid, as usual, but a quarter of a century too old for these two.  And there’s something off-putting, even condescending in the way Broadbent’s disdainful character is treated.  (The screenwriters all but showing up on set to pat him on the head.)  The Ealing films brought empathy to their monomaniacs without having to stoop.   Their eccentrics on screen were . . . us.*

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:   *Try THE LAVENDER HILL MOB/'51 as an Ealing starter.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-lavender-hill-mob-1951.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *That’s Matthew Goode on defense, walking off with all his scenes and nearly the whole pic.  Perhaps the film would have played better told from his POV.