An exploration of the last quarter century of the great, if eccentric, British painter J.M.W. Turner's life.
At two-and-a-half hours, this is not a portrait in miniature, but Spall is mesmerising to watch.
It's a funny, fitting, warts-and-all monument to a British master, with Mike Leigh demonstrating a command of his craft to rival even his subject.
Shimmering with awards potential, Leigh’s glorious picture is a hilarious, confounding, wholehearted and dazzlingly performed portrait of an artist as an ageing man.
One great British artist pays tribute to another in a lengthy but rewarding homage that boasts a titanic turn at its centre. Rarely has watching paint dry been so fascinating.
Detailed, beautiful, melancholic, funny, and above all, composed.
Mr Turner is funny, humane and visually immaculate, hitting its confident stride straight away. It combines domestic intimacy with an epic sweep, and a lyrical gentleness pervades each scene, tragic or comic.
Something of a masterwork.
The truth is, however, that even after two and a half hours of exquisitely drawn and beautifully photographed vignettes of Turner’s life (the cinematography and production design is outstanding) he remains essentially unknowable - remote, on another plane. This despite a heroic, wholly absorbed and absorbing performance from Spall.
Mike Leigh's biopic is a rambling, richly detailed character study with a magnificent central performance from Timothy Spall.
Mr Turner is as redolent of the 1830s as Abigail's Party is of the 1970s, but the period detail on show seems exactly of a piece with the characters living amid it, not on show for the sake of it.
There are plenty of bursts of raucous laughter, most of them generated by Spall, whose ear for a well-timed line is as keen as his character’s eye for colourful detail.
Mike Leigh on Mr Turner: reams of research into painter's life, but no script
Timothy Spall: How I became Mr Turner
Impressions of Mr Turner: a film researcher's view from books to screen
General release. Check local listings for show times.
Edinburgh Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Wednesday January 14, 2015, until Monday January 19, 2015. More info: www.filmhousecinema.com
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