A biopic on the life of J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851,) MR. TURNER is a quiet film that takes much patience to watch, although I am fine with that. The film is gorgeously designed with excellent scenery and costumes as you might expect from a period drama like this, along with a beautifully done score and cinematography. Unfortunately the two places where it doesn't hit the mark as much are the script and performances. For a film written (and directed by) Mike Leigh, I was disappointed by the script and how basic it was. While the vocabulary and expressions were vivid and helped enhance some of the lines, it still felt that the emotions and actions fated to the characters by the script were rather basic and made some of the characters far less sophisticated than the director probably intended them to be. And Timothy Spall's performance as J.M.W. Turner was good (certainly not a bad performance by any means,) although I felt like he didn't do or accomplish anything much during the film or was that developed as a character which was due to the script, which was (unfortunately) the only slightly asinine part of the film. Still, it's very well done from technical and creative standpoints, and this technical creativity makes it feels like a special type of period piece, especially in the first act, so it's overall a good film, although maybe not quite as great as you might have expected. Still, I liked it overall and would give it a very solid 7.5/10.
Review of Mr. Turner
Mr. Turner
(2014)
Well-made biopic has great technical creativity; disappointing script.
28 December 2014