Review – Mr. Turner

This movie absolutely broke my heart. I love J.M.W. Turner’s work. An exhibit of his paintings I was lucky enough to see at the National Gallery a few years ago still stands as one of the most amazing things that’s ever happened to me. Though I’m prepared – even eager – to accept the proposition that such works of staggering genius could be produced by a man who lived a fairly ordinary life, I seriously wonder why, in that case, anyone would bother making a movie out of his biography. This production isn’t helped in the slightest by writer / director Mike Leigh’s decision to skip the session in screenwriting class when the difference between chronology and storytelling was discussed. As a result, some of the most important works of art ever preserved on canvas get completely lost in the banal trivia of the artist’s life. Absent any kind of story or character arc, the two-and-a-half-hour running time becomes an “is it over yet?” ordeal. Turner deserved so much better. See if desperate