joanna-89 Mr Turner is beautiful quiet contemplative sensual moving. Timothy Spall becomes Turner before your eyes. Guessing that many negative reviewers felt the movie was too slow or that it was hard to watch the depiction of such a complicated human being. That's why I liked it. Slow and deliberate like the process of a painting.

sebastiandominguezaleman Mr. Turner, the biopic of the last 25 years in the life of British Painter William Turner is an absolute triumph. Not many movies manage to not have any weak points at all. But Mike Leigh manages to craft this picture with the precision of the most skilled painter. A work of direction so elegant, so polished, so precise, that locates Leigh among the most talented directors working today. The script serves as the foundation stone to what I can only describe as a very immmersive experience. The long conversations between the characters are truly fascinating, but the best aspect of the script is the moments when Leigh tells the story with silence. These quiet moments when we can only hear the background noice and perhaps a little bit of music at times, is what make the viewer so invested in the story. The cinematography, work of Dick Pope, is absolutely breath-taking. Every single frame looks like a painting worth hanging in an art gallery. It manages to capture the colours and feel of expressionism, which fits perfectly with Mr. Turner's story. The score, work of composer Gary Yershon, while simple, fits the movie beautifully. Costumes, courtesy of Jacqueline Durran, are beautifuly tailored and work very well with the cour palette of the sets and locations. Suzie Davies and Charlotte Dirickx constructed sets so meticulously crafted that feels like every old paintbrush Turner owns has a purpose. But by far the best aspect of the movie is Mr. Turner himself. Timothy Spall gives the performance of a lifetime. He is not playing Turner, he is Turner! There are so many aspects and details in his performance that truly made him one of the best characters of the year 2014. Is not only the way he deliver his dialogues, which is what you may expect from what's defined as a "good performance", but the way he grunts, the way he walks, the expression in his eyes when he is bothered by something, as opposed to when he feels facination, sadness or confusion, the way he moves his lips when he isn't talking, everything is delivered amazingly, and I can't remember the last time an actor got so robbed of an Oscar nomination. What may put a lot of people off is the length of it. And yes, it is 150 minutes long, but I believe that all scenes are there for a reason, even the ones that are inconsequential are never boring and serve a purpose in the development of the character. Overall, this movie is an example of what a biopic should be. And the way it made me feel while watching it, the way it made me feel afterwards, makes be give this movie the perfect score. When I say this movie is perfect, I don't mean that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. In my opinion there are no movies 100% free of flaws, but this is as perfect as a movie gets.

nqure Not usually a fan of Mike Leigh's work, but thoroughly enjoyed this film, which is slow-paced & impressionistic, with distinct scenes that seem apparently unrelated, but which harmonise into a whole. Leigh's film echoes Turner's approach to art: both take an unorthodox approach. Leigh's film does not possess a linear narrative, but is a series of impressions that hang together (like pictures in an exhibition) to form an organic whole. A cynic might wonder if Leigh views himself as a latter day incarnation of Turner as an artist (misunderstood).The film (three hours) is structured around Turner & his relationships, firstly with his beloved father & loyal maid-servant Danby in London; secondly with a landlady he meets on his painting trips to the Kent seaside; & the final strand, about the ageing painter with his contemporaries, nascent art criticism (Ruskin's intellect contrasts with Turner's intuitive, instinctual approach), with the public (ridicule) & royalty, a man seemingly out of touch with new movements (the pre-Raphaelites) , fearful of being forgotten though still retaining faith in his own distinctive artistic vision ('it will come': understanding), whose genius is appreciated by the few (the compassionate doctor), a man ahead of his time anticipating the new French art movement to come.The film is the study of an inarticulate man but one with a very deep instinct & artistic vision, a man fuelled by both a passion for art & the sensual. There are echoes of Hesse & his multiplicity of selves, in the way Turner is a man both of sublime vision but also of powerful sexual drives (his sexual exploitation of his long-suffering maid-servant). He is a visionary but also a loving son, socially awkward, moody & grunting assent yet capable of deep feeling & passion (his faltering yet moving rendition of Purcell). These multiple personalities are reflected in how those around him address him: to his father & estranged mother of his children, he is simply 'Billy', to his contemporaries (Constable) 'William' & 'Turner' & in the upper echelons as 'Mr Turner'.'Mr Turner' is also about his relationship with those around him, in particular, his beloved father, 'Daddy', Mrs Booth, the landlady with whom he finds content & loving understanding of the whole man, the unfortunate Danby, loving but neglected & Benjamin Haydon, a fellow artist.This artistic relationship provides a fascinating strand to the story & a real undertow of tragedy for we know history saw Turner vindicated, but what happens to the artist who is mediocre & whose sacrifice proves vain? Haydon, too, is a man of passion, anarchic, angry at being derided & whose outbursts provide vitriolic black humour. He is, sadly, a rebel without a cause. (Researching Haydon's life following the film, he committed suicide. Dickens, usually so compassionate in his books, made a caustic appraisal of Haydon's work).Both Haydon & Turner are marginalised & misunderstood by their contemporaries, though one is ridiculed for a lack of talent ('Self portrait of an ass'), the other for being innovative, respected but regarded as veering off into his own eccentric direction (the scene in the RA where he apparently ruins a picture, but then smears over the paint). Such relationships throw a kind of chiaroscuro, light & dark, (tonal contrasts) over proceedings so that we see Turner in different kinds of light (light being central to his work as an artist). Turner's talent allows him to flit between the social worlds of aristocratic salons & the brothel.Thank heavens for Film4 +1 as one scene completely left me befuddled & yet after watching it again, this challenging scene is probably the emotional key to understanding the film & the man. This is the scene with the experiment regarding colour & light undertaken by Mary Somerville (Lesley Manville), a scientist. The experiment about the magnetic pole & spectrum of colours reflects both Turner's personality (artistic, sexual, a man of contradictions) & the impressionistic nature/vision of the film itself, contradictory elements that harmonise into a whole. It is also a scene where the normally inarticulate Turner is voluble as if the nature of science justifies his vision of art, of capturing light & shade.The final scene, of the artist out in the open air as seen through the loving eyes of his companion harks back to the opening one set in the dusk of the Dutch countryside, of a free spirit out in the open air.

Leofwine_draca MR. TURNER is Mike Leigh's biopic of the famous Victorian painter, with Timothy Spall in the title role. It's a lengthy and slightly disappointing movie, mainly because it's quite good but not excellent, as I'd heard. People make out this film to be some kind of masterpiece, and while it does feel authentic and interesting, it fails to grip like other biopics. It's overlong and meandering in places, and as a director Leigh is interested in minute detail rather than the bigger picture.Put it like this: I watched the James Mason film THE DESERT FOX the day before, and as a biopic of the Nazi commander Rommel that was head and shoulders above this film. It had heart, soul, and drama, and MR. TURNER struggles with all of those. What this film does have is plenty of authenticity, bringing the 19th century to colourful and vivid life, and a surprising amount of humour that works. Spall is fine in the title role, but you get the impression that this Turner is a caricature rather than a fully-fledged and fully-rounded fellow. He has no character development and remains simply a classic British eccentric. Compare this to something like CREATION, which really attempted to get into the nitty gritty of Darwin's life and what made him tick, and MR. TURNER suffers by comparison.