Review of Mr. Turner (2014) by Idahotraveler — 27 Feb 2015

Extremely disappointed. From other reviews, I was expecting a decent portrayal of Turner's artistic life, quirks, passions and lots of landscape colors. I got those, but not in a very cohesive manner.

Instead, you got a poor script that had no flow or continuity- kept jumping around and you were trying to make sense of a scene as to what it was saying and why it was there and then you were somewhere else in an instant.

As for Turner's character, you needn't have thought it was an international film- if you like scowling, grunting and growling, they are universal in any language. When Turner wasn't doing the foregoing, he talked like he had marbles in his mouth.

I usually don't have problems understanding British dialect having lived over there for a long time, but I had problems with getting the lines in this film- mostly because he never opened his mouth except to pout.

I can understand a generally grumpy personality, but this portrayal kept pulling me out of the realm of credibility- here sits Mrs. Booth (his pseudo-wife at the end of his life), smiling brightly like the sun in the sky, smiling coquettishly at a squinty-eyed Scrooge- we're really supposed to believe that anyone could be attracted to such a man as portrayed? Bah Humbug! (I kept expecting him to say it at any moment.

) It really was a shame because the cinematography, music, costumes and production design were all Oscar worthy (for which they were nominated and I agreed).