Movie · 2014 · History, Drama · 2h 30m · R · English
Curator score: 7.0/10 (51.9K ratings)
Overview
Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.
Timothy Spall, Dorothy Atkinson, Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson, Lesley Manville, Martin Savage, Ruth Sheen, David Horovitch, Karl Johnson, Peter Wight, Joshua McGuire, Stuart McQuarrie, Sylvestra Le Touzel, Leo Bill, Kate O'Flynn, Sinéad Matthews, Karina Fernandez, Richard Bremmer, Mark Stanley, Jamie Thomas King
Curator Review
Verdict
A richly textured, patient biographical drama that treats J.M.W. Turner less like a museum subject and more like a living, contradictory force. It’s funny, tactile, and visually immersive, with Timothy Spall giving one of the great modern portrait performances.
Best for
Viewers who like painterly period dramas
Fans of character-driven British cinema
People interested in art history and creative process
Audiences who appreciate slow-burn, observational storytelling
Skip if
You want a brisk, plot-heavy biopic
You dislike long runtimes and elliptical structure
You prefer emotionally tidy or conventionally likable protagonists
You need constant narrative momentum
Overview
Mr. Turner is a biopic that behaves like a painting: layered, stubborn, and full of light that changes depending on where you stand. Mike Leigh builds the film from gesture, texture, and social friction rather than exposition, and the result is a portrait of an artist who is brilliant, rude, funny, and often impossible to love. Timothy Spall disappears into the role with astonishing physical specificity.
Worth noting
What makes the film special is its refusal to flatten Turner into a saintly genius. Leigh is interested in appetite, labor, class, and the awkward intimacy of aging, so the film feels as much about the body of an artist as the work he leaves behind. The domestic scenes are as carefully observed as the seascapes and skies, and that balance gives the film its emotional weight.
Bottom line
It is not a fast or especially conventional film, and some viewers will find its sprawl deliberate to the point of abrasion. But if you meet it on its own terms, Mr. Turner becomes immersive and unexpectedly moving, a study of artistic vision that is both grand and deeply human.
Leigh’s funniest? we were laughing and laughing. so much more lush & engaging than my first viewing eight years ago. honestly they should have barred me from seeing this at 23. loser mindset era— too narrowly concerned about him being “rude to women” to see its expansive, beautiful, meticulous point of view
Matt Singer (3.5★) · 173 likes
And now, a review of MR. TURNER in the style of its main character:
"Mmmmmmmm. MMMMMMM. Mmmmmm. [Snort.]"
David Sims (5★) · 132 likes
THE SUN IS GOD
Eli Hayes (3★) · 119 likes
A film with shots so breathtaking that the entire audience would gasp collectively, but also a film that's desperately in need of an editor. Normally I'm not one to criticize shallowness of narrative, but as much as I loved the performances in this film, even those can run out of steam a little bit when the audience is forced to endure the same sort of strange, goofy behavior and (as everyone else has mentioned) grunting for a bloated 150 minutes.… more A film with shots so breathtaking that the entire audience would gasp collectively, but also a film that's desperately in need of an editor. Normally I'm not one to criticize shallowness of narrative, but as much as I loved the performances in this film, even those can run out of steam a little bit when the audience is forced to endure the same sort of strange, goofy behavior and (as everyone else has mentioned) grunting for a bloated 150 minutes.… more
2011 · Drama, Romance · 1h 38m · R · Curator 7.5/10 (17.7K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, Philo, OVID, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Another Leigh drama of longing, restraint, and emotional self-destruction, rendered with precision.
Topics
period drama, biopic, British cinema, art world, slow cinema, historical drama, painterly visuals, character study, 19th century, auteur filmmaking