The person sitting next to me fell asleep 7 times watching Mr. Turner. Can’t say I blame him and even thought about drifting off myself. Mr. Turner is a slog of a film: British Oscar Bait about an aging artist. In Mr. Turner’s defense, the man was REALLY old.
Many of you are probably unaware that you know J.M.W. Turner (Timothy Spall). He is famous for seafaring paintings that have probably been at your local art museum, and he was a pioneer of impressionism. Mr. Turner captures the twilight of the man’s life. We see the evolution of his relationships with his partner (Dorothy Atkinson) and father (Paul Jesson), and the fling he has with a widow Sophia (Marion Bailey). In addition, Turner’s art evolves as he ages to disappointing results for the populous.
The big failing of Mr. Turner is its pandering to its demographic: geriatrics. Director Mike Leigh uses lots of picturesque stillness to capture the beauty of JMW Turner’s creations. As breathtaking as those sights are, the stillness unfortunately bleeds over into the rest of the movie. At times, it feels as if Leigh forgot to turn off the camera; scenes drag on and on, and sometimes scenes repeat on and on and end in the wrong place. Frustratingly, there are about 3 or 4 different ending points, all solid, that the director bypasses for what ends up to be filler. Also, the painter is shown here to be a more crotchety type, groaning answers all the time; however, much of his language is indecipherable for the hard of hearing and structured too correctly for the period, which diminishes all the punchlines since Turner is mostly monotone.
Director Leigh wants to juxtapose the beauty of the art with the curmudgeonly, dirty fellow producing it. Mr. Turner takes about an hour to get interesting, using the painter’s relationship with his father as a trigger for changes in his personality and painting. In particular we see a compartmentalized version of how each new woman he meets brings something else to his life, whether it be companionship, sex, artistic inspiration, or simply a distraction. The most interesting part of Mr. Turner is his evolution in style from straightforward majestic ocean canvases to impressionism. The man’s relationship to the art scene is particularly enjoyable, especially watching Turner groan at an inferior painter or a simple-minded youth. The poignancy of an artist watching the world pass him by and forget him is lessened by the aimless story, but it still resonates in the end.
Much of Mr. Turner’s success is due to how well Timothy Spall can say so much with an “ugggghhhh” or “mmmmmmhhhh.” Spall has prepared his whole life to be JMW Turner, using his honed scowl to maximum advantage. Surrounding him are a bunch of character actors not well known in the US, but doing good work here. Dorothy Atkinson and Marion Bailey take what could have been one note characters and nicely flesh out their personalities; Atkinson deserves commendation for her work, since she has to show us with little dialogue and acknowledgement just how much her relationship with Mr. Turner is. Most other actors have one scene or two to shine: Paul Jesson (as Turner’s father) and Martin Savage (as a tortured artist) stand out the most.
Mr. Turner won Timothy Spall some awards at the Cannes Film Festival, a reward for starring in several Harry Potter Films and Enchanted. Spall deservedly earns his spotlight as the famed British painter, using his trademark grimacing to great effect. Seriously though, how would you ever know if this man was happy? Maybe we should test this theory with a box full of puppies.