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Mr. Turner

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United Kingdom, France, Germany · 2014
Rated R · 2h 30m
Director Mike Leigh
Starring Timothy Spall, Dorothy Atkinson, Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson
Genre History, Drama

The last 25 years of J.M.W. Turner's life are nothing short of illustrious. The eccentric painter has lived a mostly sedentary life with his housemaid Ms. Danby, a deep admirer of him; But, his father's death changes things. Emboldened, he discovers new love and seeks countless adventures, as both his life and his paintings intensify.

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75

Hitfix by

Mr. Turner's passions and neuroses feel more peculiar to Leigh and his own work. It's tempting, even, to view the film as biopic-as-self-portrait, revealing shades of one life through another.

88

Slant Magazine by Chris Cabin

An astute summation of Mike Leigh's glum view of humanity, but also a challenge to this disposition and his own pessimistic perspective.

100

Time Out London by Dave Calhoun

As ever with Leigh, Mr Turner addresses the big questions with small moments. It's an extraordinary film, all at once strange, entertaining, thoughtful and exciting.

91

IndieWire by Eric Kohn

Mr. Turner is a first-rate match of director and subject. Less an explication of the man's genius than an immersion into its essence.

80

CineVue by John Bleasdale

In arguably a career-topping performance, Timothy Spall plays the cantankerous painter as a complex, grunting, snarling and utterly single-minded creature.

100

The Hollywood Reporter by Leslie Felperin

Anchored by a masterful performance by Timothy Spall in a role he was born to play, and gilded by career-best effort from DoP Dick Pope, working for the first time on digital for Leigh to bridge the gap between the painting and cinematography, Mr. Turner manages to illuminate that nexus between biography and art with elegant understatement.

91

The Playlist by Oliver Lyttelton

Mr Turner, though not without flaws, is something of a twilight culmination of Leigh's work, and very much one in which the filmmaker turns his lens on himself, as is so often the case when directors make movies about artists.

100

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

What a glorious film this is, richly and immediately enjoyable, hitting its satisfying stride straight away. It's funny and visually immaculate; it combines domestic intimacy with an epic sweep and has a lyrical, mysterious quality that perfumes every scene, whether tragic or comic.

100

The Telegraph by Robbie Collin

Beyond the troughful of fun tics, Spall makes Turner tenderly and totally human — the effect of which is to make his artistic talents seem even more extraordinary still.

100

Variety by Scott Foundas

Leigh has made another highly personal study of art, commerce and the glacial progress of establishment tastes, built around a lead performance from longtime Leigh collaborator Timothy Spall that’s as majestic as one of Turner’s own swirling sunsets.

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