Synopsis
Eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner lives his last 25 years with gusto and secretly becomes involved with a seaside landlady, while his faithful housekeeper bears an unrequited love for him.
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Cast
- Timothy SpallJMW Turner
- Dorothy AtkinsonHannah Danby
- Marion BaileySophia Booth
- Paul JessonWilliam Turner Snr
- Lesley ManvilleMary Somerville
- Martin SavageBenjamin Robert Haydon
- Ruth SheenSarah Danby
- David HorovitchDr Price
- Karl JohnsonMr. Booth
- Peter WightJoseph Gillot
Recommendations
- 100
The Guardian
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 Hollywood Reporter
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. - 100
The Telegraph
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
Time Out London
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. - 100
Variety
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. - 91
IndieWire
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. - 91
The Playlist
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. - 88
Slant Magazine
An astute summation of Mike Leigh's glum view of humanity, but also a challenge to this disposition and his own pessimistic perspective.
