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United Kingdom/France/Germany 2014
Directed by
Mike Leigh
150 minutes
Rated M

Reviewed by
Chris Thompson
4 stars

Mr Turner

Synopsis: In his last twenty-five years of life, the much celebrated nineteenth century painter, JMW Turner (Timothy Spall) travels, paints, stays with the rural aristocracy, visits brothels and is a popular if anarchic member of the Royal Academy of Arts. During this time he is profoundly affected by the death of his father (Paul Jesson), and takes for granted his loyal housekeeper (Dorothy Atkinson) and estranged mistress (Ruth Sheen) and their two daughters. On a visit to the seaside he forms a close relationship with his landlady, Mrs Booth (Marion Bailey), with whom he eventually lives incognito. Towards the end of his life, his fortunes change as he becomes ridiculed and reviled by both the public and by royalty.

Timothy Spall is a very fine actor but we often only see him in smaller gems of supporting roles. In Mister Turner he dominates the screen from the first silhouetted glimpse of his character looking out over a Dutch canal to his final flailing breath some twenty-five years later. Spall completely embodies this character in a towering performance that won him the Best Actor gong at this year’s Cannes. His waddling gait, the attack with which he paints his canvasses and his vocabulary of curmudgeonly grunts and snuffles bring wonderful physicality and vocal colour to writer/director Mike Leigh’s sharply observed, episodic screenplay.

But Spall is not alone here. His talent is equalled across the board by this cast of Mike Leigh regulars from films such as All Or Nothing, Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake.  The early scenes with Turner's father are sweet and touching and Jesson brings a warmth to the role that counterpoints and softens the gruffness of his son. But the standout for me is Turner’s devoted housekeeper whom he refers to as Damsel, and who attends to his every need despite his rough handling of her on both a personal and sexual level. Atkinson’s performance is in turn funny and moving and accounts for just one of the many fine elements that give this film its depth.

Amongst these elements is Dick Pope’s excellent cinematography which offers us beautifully-lit settings that might themselves be the result of Turner’s brush, and Dan Taylor’s glorious art direction.  And, of course, there is Leigh’s screenplay in which he presents this world to us in the same warts-and-all manner as he presents its characters. Cleanliness seems only a veneer away from filth. The delightful young thing that sings for a parlour gathering is wincingly off-key.  When Turner himself chooses to impress a young lady at the piano, his voice is stilted and tuneless. The dialogue feels both authentic and contemporary. When lisping critic John Ruskin (Joshua McGuire) says ‘There is no place for cynicism in the reviewing of art’ we are given to a wry smile, but when Turner says, ‘When I peruse myself in the looking-glass, I perceive a gargoyle’ it’s heartbreaking.

Mir Turner is so much more than a biopic of a famous painter. In fact, to a large extent, the paintings themselves are inconsequential to the story. It’s an examination of a difficult man and the complex relationships he maintains to provide him with both servitude and affection. It may not be quite as wonderful as Leigh’s Gilbert & Sullivan portrait, Topsy Turvy, but it is a deft and witty examination of the singularity of a creative soul, its simultaneous need and disregard for human contact, and the politics and rivalries of the art world within which that soul resides.

 

 

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