Jim Broadbent is priceless in this canny, tender British comedy, based on a real-life art heist that bamboozled the police, as well as the scriptwriters of Bond adventure Dr. No. In 1961, when Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington disappeared from the National Gallery, those in the know assumed it had been stolen by a “well-funded, international” gang and was now hanging in some arch-criminal’s lair. That a humble Geordie might have nabbed it, and stashed it in the back of a cupboard, was a plot twist no one stopped to consider.
Kempton Bunton sounds like the kind of botanical garden where you get charged £20 to look at a tulip. It’s actually the name of our working class, socialist, feminist hero, who can’t stand the Duke of Wellington (“he voted against universal suffrage!”) and calls Goya “some Spanish drunk!” He hides the painting where his law-abiding wife Dolly (Helen Mirren) can’t see it, then sends letters to the government explaining that he’ll return the masterpiece if his charitable demands are met (he wants impoverished OAPs to be given free access to TV). His son, Jackie (Fionn Whitehead), is on his side. But might the whole thing get out of hand and land Bunton in court?
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