Review of Mr. Turner (2014) by Bill S — 29 Aug 2015

My first introduction to Mike Leigh was a little disappointing, honestly. I'd heard a lot of critical hype for this movie, and in a lot of ways it seemed like it'd be an unconventional biopic, one that might not get as much attention from the Academy as other 2014 biopics The Imitation Game or The Theory of Everything, but one that's more out there and ultimately better. (Luckily, we still have Selma for that.) In some ways that's true; The King's Speech and The Imitation Game both have a lot more humor in ways that seem designed to appeal to mass audiences, but Mr. Turner isn't created for the purpose of appealing to as many people as possible. While that's admirable, though, I think personally I fall into the category of audience that this movie doesn't appeal much to.

I had two main problems with the movie. One, it's not very focused. It focuses on the last 25 or so years of J.M.W. Turner's life, but I wish it was even more focused than that. The most important thing in writing biopics, I think, is focus, and this just didn't really have that. Some scenes seemed to repeat themselves. There is no real event that begins the movie; it slowly meanders around to different aspects of Turner's life. I wasn't really sure what the point was, if that makes sense. Okay, in a way it's a plus that there isn't some reductive point, like making Mr. Turner a symbol of darkness or beauty or something. But it still felt a little lacking in purpose.

That gets to my main problem, which is just that the movie is very, very slow-paced. I try to go into movies without glancing at the clock and just sitting back and taking it in, but this one made me very conscious of the time. It's 2 and a half hours, and I just think it could've been shorter. Like I said, scenes seem to be repeating themselves. You get a sense for the pace of his life, and by staying with him so long we do get a strong sense for his personality, but it just felt like it should've been more tightly structured, even if it's meant to be languid and patient instead of thrilling or purposeful like Selma or The Imitation Game.

So Mr. Turner wasn't really my cup of tea, but thankfully, there were a few big things that made the movie bearable for me and made me glad I saw it. First, there's the cast, which is pretty great. Timothy Spall is so willing to just be as idiosyncratic and, well, GROSS as possible. You shouldn't evaluate a performance by its ugliness, of course, and I don't want to be unfair to Mr. Spall, but his physical look throughout the movie is almost funny in its willingness to snort and ugly-cry and ugly-laugh. And I really enjoyed Marion Bailey, who just exuded kindness. That shot of her scrubbing the windows and kind of laughing wistfully to herself was one of my favorites when it came to the characters. Also, there are some good standout scenes that didn't feel like the movie repeating itself. I loved the scenes whenever there were really pretentious characters talking about art, especially the conversation when Ruskin was expressing his admiration for Mr. Turner and his resentment for Claude Loraine. That Ruskin guy is hilarious in how pretentious he acts; I loved his ad nauseam praise of Mr. Turner and how flowery he spoke. Aside from that scene and a few others, though, I do wish there was a little more humor to keep the movie moving.

The main thing that made this movie worth watching, though, was the cinematography. There are so many beautiful views of the countryside, and beautiful views of exteriors and interiors of buildings, and the paintings themselves were well-photographed. I love that opening shot a lot, and I love the closing shot, too. I'm never sure exactly where directing ends and cinematography begins, but I credit both Mike Leigh (who, for this movie, succeeded more as a director than a writer, in my opinion) and Dick Pope in creating the magnificent shots that fill every scene. I love that Leigh just stands back once in a while and observes, slowly panning or dollying when necessary to follow the characters but often staying a bit removed for a wide shot of the space. Leigh's compositions are great, and even when the 'story' itself frankly bored me, everything was always visually great. I'm not sure the movie's story captured Mr. Turner's overwhelming need to capture life's beauty as much as it could've, but in showing long, gorgeous shots of the scenery, Leigh and Pope certainly succeeded in showing us some of that beauty that Turner saw.