Mr. Turner

Director: Mike Leigh
Cast: Timothy Spall, Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson
Length: 150 minutes
Country: UK, France, Germany

To be perfectly frank, I’ve always found biopics a particularly struggle to watch. It’s the fine line between documentary and film that I find hard to grasp. Where some biopics aim to depict the life of person in its entirety, others focus solely on the individual’s defining moments (good and bad).  Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, chooses instead to straddle the between those two categories. It depicts the last 25 years of the great British painter, the title’s eponymous J.M.W. Turner. Through it we see the eccentric and deeply flawed life lead by the painter in his latter years. The film examines his various personal relationships as well as his on method and approach to art.

If I had to sum up the experience of watching this film in a sentence, I’d say it is a lot like walking through an art gallery: briefly going from picture and admiring its beauty though sometimes a little unsure of its meaning.  As a casual viewer, one who’s only acquainted with the artist by his name, I found it particularly difficult to keep track of the plot of the film. Mainly, because of the multitude of characters we are introduced to in the beginning. It takes a while to fully grasp the relationships between them and Turner. Moreover, Turner’s general attitude towards people can almost be generalized as dismissiveness. This makes it even harder to distinguish the different characters he interacts with apart.

At two and a half hours long, the film really draws out his life in sharp contrast to the swift, almost rabid movements Turner employs in his paintings. If anything, it really proves just how different the man was to his work.  The only times we are confronted with scenes of intense action it’s during one of his excursions for a new painting: looking out over the sea from a cliff top or being tied to masthead out at sea in the middle of a snow storm. Moving from these different vignettes of his life at such a slow pace does leave one to wonder what comes next quite a lot. This, together with the vague character development, does make the film one that seems more suited to an audience that is already familiar with the life of the film’s subject.

The element that really binds the whole film together is the superb acting by Timothy Spall, as Mr. Turner, and Marion Bailey, as Sophia Booth – Turner’s second mistress. So much is conveyed in the film just through Spall’s grunts and the furrows in face. It’s a brilliant piece of acting though, admittedly, watching a man stagger through a house grunting in response to people isn’t the most interesting thing to watch. In contrast, Bailey’s presence and the chemistry between both actors convey a lot of brighter moments in Turner’s life. It’s no surprise then that both actors have generated quite a bit of awards buzz for their roles. Another role that was very well acted was that of Turner’s faithful housekeeper, Hannah Darby played Dorothy Atkinson. Atkinson perfectly captured the thin line between affection and disdain that Darby had towards her fairly exploitative master. Like Spall, Atkinson’s portrayal also relied less on words and more on just body language.

The elements and questions raised and portrayed in the film are excellently done, but for a casual viewer, it’s just not a very engaging film.

There were many times during the film when I wondered whether the things I considered as pitfalls were in fact deliberate choices by Leigh. Whether the seemingly headless plot was a reflection of how we are never sure of what is to come in life? Whether the increased dialogues in latter scenes which depicted Turner’s life with Booth, reflected Turner’s opening up to human warmth and thus making him more easily understood by the audience? Were the grandiose juxtapositions of huge natural scenes against a single painter meant the reflect Turner’s ability to capture a scene so large and so rich all within himself?

This is where I find conflict in my review. The elements and questions raised and portrayed in the film are excellently done, but for a casual viewer, it’s just not a very engaging film. Taking the time out to really think of about the film uncovers a lot of the subtle nuances that help deliver the story. In that regard, Mr. Turner is indeed a masterpiece not unlike the works of the artist himself: a blur of colour and detail whose layers are only revealed through closer examination.  A person who is interested in the artist would enjoy the film for its biographical qualities and for its examination of his method and personal life. A person who closely read film would enjoy the director’s techniques in piecing together this story. A person like me, walking in without prior knowledge about the artist and expecting to be captured by his life,  would probably leave feeling slightly disappointed and a little confused.

Header Image Source, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics; Image 1, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.