Long before Sergio García, Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer became the people most associated with the game of golf a father and son team were the most famous names on the fairway. A new film, “Tommy’s Honour,” lionizes Tom Morris (known as Old Tom and played by Peter Mullan) and Tommy Morris (Young Tom, played by Jack Lowden) as the founders of the modern game.
Based on the book “Tommy’s Honour: The Story of Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris, Golf’s Founding Father and Son” and brought to the screen by Jason Connery, the film takes place against a backdrop of nineteenth century class struggle. Old Tom is the greenskeeper of Scotland’s St. Andrews Links, the largest golf complex in Europe. He is a traditionalist, a man accepting of his place in society. Not so his oldest son Tommy. A golf prodigy, he has a healthy disregard for authority and an eye toward doing things his way. He refuses to accept his lot in life—become a caddy and then one day, perhaps, work his way up to greenskeeper. His talent and arrogance win out, however, and even though championship play was reserved for the wealthy he went on to become (and still remains), at age 17, the youngest ever winner of what is now known as the British Open.
Flushed with success he demands a larger share of his winnings, butting heads with upper crust types like St. Andrews club captain Alexander Boothby (Sam Neill). Personally he defies his religious mother by dating Meg Drinnen (Ophelia Lovibond), an older woman with a scandalous past.
Showdowns, both personal and professional, follow as “Tommy’s Honour” explores the sport and societal norms of the time.
The best sports movies are never really about the sport and “Tommy’s Honour” is no different. Golf supplies the backdrop for an examination of the social shift of the game, from a gentleman’s past time to a game for (almost) everyone. It’s a class study with plenty of melodrama and father-and-son clashes that should supply some level of interest to non-golf fans.
Director Connery is workmanlike in his presentation of the story, preferring to simply document the performances rather than clutter the screen with fancy editing or swooping crane shots of St. Andrews. It’s a stately, traditionally made film about a radical change to the game.
Mullan hits a hole in one as Old Tom, bringing gravitas and fire to the role. Lowden is a fresh-faced find, a charismatic actor who carries the movie.
“Tommy’s Honour” succeeds because of its subtext, the underlying investigation of social mores of the day told through one family’s story and their influence on the game of golf.
A new Australian drama titled “The Daughter” tackles a variety of topics. Everything from a small town decimated by the closing of a lumber mill to infidelity, the nature of parent’s relationships to their kids, young love, addiction and class divides are explored but despite the busy schedule of events the film is very focussed.
Loosely based on Henrik Ibsen’s 1884 tragedy “The Wild Duck,” the movie is set in a dying Australian logging town. Christian (Paul Schneider), son of the town’s lumber magnate (Geoffrey Rush), hasn’t been home in years. On the occasion of his father’s wedding to a much younger woman (Anna Torv) Christian brings his swirling mass of daddy issues and personal problems home for the first time since his mother committed suicide.
He reconnects with his best chum from university, Oliver (Ewen Leslie) and jovial but unemployed lumber worker, husband to Charlotte (Miranda Otto) and father to teenager Hedvig, played by Odessa Young. Over the course of the wedding weekend some dangerous truths are revealed, family secrets that threaten to blow families apart and destroy an innocent life.
To be any more specific would do a disservice to director Simon Stone’s storytelling. He skilfully brings together a small group of characters, overlapping their lives to bring them to a devastating conclusion. You won’t leave the theatre with a smile on your face but you’ll exit having seen an uncompromising but engaging look at personal dysfunction.
Naturalistic performances from a who’s who of Australian actors, Rush, Leslie, Otto and Sam Neill—who now plays old cranky grandfather parts—draw the viewer in but it is newcomer Young as Hedwig who is at the center of the action. Leslie has the showiest part but Young’s work gives us a reason to care about the personal politics.
“The Daughter” is a gem, an emotionally affecting film that transcends melodrama to cut to the core of how people react and regret in the face of fidelity and betrayal.
Chances are you’ve already seen the latest 3D action adventure movie lumbering toward theatres this weekend. “Jurassic Park’s” DNA’d dinos originally scared the spinosaurus out of people in 1993, but has been updated—except for excited references to interactive CD-ROMs—with the addition of stereoscopic imagery. It’s a blast from the Mesozoic past with 3D dinosaurs.
A refresher for those used to fast forwarding to the exciting bits: Set in a time when CD ROMs aren’t the culture’s biggest scientific advance, the action begins when billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) invites his two grandchildren, Tim (Joseph Mazzello) and Lex (Ariana Richards) and a group of scientists (Sam Neill and Laura Dern), lawyer Donald Gennaro (Martin Ferrero) and a mathematician (Jeff Goldblum) to his new biogenetics theme park, Jurassic Park, located on a remote island off the coast of Costa Rica.
The park’s big draw are real brachiosaurs, triceratops, velociraptors and Tyrannosaurus Rexes grown from long-dormant dino DNA molecules taken from dinosaur-biting prehistoric insects preserved in amber.
It’s all fun and games until an underhanded employee (Wayne “Newman” Knight) hatches a plan to steal dinosaur embryos. His plan goes awry and soon hungry dinosaurs are on the rampage, snacking on lawyers and hunting the kids!
For a period piece–this year marks its twentieth anniversary—“Jurassic Park” is still a pulse pounder. Twenty years ago the special effects that gave us the lifelike dinosaurs made our eyeballs dance. Today we don’t notice the computer generated magic as much and can allow ourselves to be swept away by the thriller and horror aspects of director Steven Spielberg’s vision.
After an opening that relies too heavily on exposition—show me, don’t tell me!—the movie’s pleasures reveal themselves when Spielberg’s impeccable sense of timing comes into play. The now legendary trembling glass of water scene—ripples slowly appear as a T-Rex approaches—is as exciting now as it was two decades ago.
The question here is whether or not a film like “Jurassic Park” is improved by the addition of 3D bells and whistles. The real answer is no, but the movie remains an adrenaline rush and a treat to see back where it belongs, on the big screen.
Long before Sergio García, Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer became the people most associated with the game of golf a father and son team were the most famous names on the fairway. A new film, “Tommy’s Honour,” lionizes Tom Morris (known as Old Tom and played by Peter Mullan) and Tommy Morris (Young Tom, played by Jack Lowden) as the founders of the modern game.
