Lisa Johnson Mandell’s The Duke review says the film, based on a true story, is a nostalgic delight, anchored by engaging performances by Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent.

They had me at Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent. But beyond that combine two of the greatest and most engaging actors of all time with a fascinating story based on fact, and I’m all in.

The Duke is a low-key, enigmatic film that’s about as close to irresistible as you can get. It stylishly takes us back to 1961 England where Kempton Bunton, a 60-year-old taxi driver (Broadbent) and his professional housekeeper wife Lilya (Mirren) are struggling to get by.

They don’t have much money for extras, so watching the telly is their main and most beloved source of entertainment. However, the BBC, by far the best of the two networks available to them, charges what to them is a steep license fee. You can actually go to jail for not paying the fee, and Bunton does.

We take up with them when he’s back in the courtroom, being tried for stealing Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. He confesses to stealing the painting, but not for the reasons you might think.

Will his savvy solicitor, played by Matthew Goode with a wink and a nod to Cary Grant, convince the jury to let him go free? That’s the main storyline in this savory tale, but there’s so much more to the movie.

The music, the cinematography, the directing by Roger Michell (Notting Hill, Changing Lanes) all harken back to kinder, more sentimental times when cinema focused on story, character and relationships, and got it all in under two hours. This cinematic nostalgia is as refreshing as they come.

Rated R

1 hour 36 minutes

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