Mr. Turner

The last twenty-five years of the painter J. M. W. Turner. Established at the Royal Academy, famous and contested; indifferent at home to his housekeeper Hannah Danby, building another life in Margate with his landlady Sophia Booth. Mike Leigh directed and Timothy Spall starred. Spall learned to paint for the part. The most-repeated scene happens at an Academy exhibition: seeing the vividness of the Constable hanging next to him, Turner strikes a spot of red onto his own seascape. Leigh worked with the historian Jacqueline Riding on research. Filming covered many UK locations, with Wentworth Woodhouse standing in for the Royal Academy and the sequence of Turner lashed to a mast in a storm shot aboard HMS Gannet. Spall won Best Actor at Cannes and cinematographer Dick Pope took the Vulcan Award at the same festival. The film collected four Oscar nominations: cinematography, costume design, original score and production design. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 97 percent and Metacritic at 94. On a 14 million dollar budget it grossed 25.2 million. Who it is for: viewers who like painter biographies and Leigh's feel for daily detail. Who it is not for: anyone expecting sympathy. The film does not make Turner endearing; it leaves him grunting and cruel to the people around him.