In acclaimed English director Mike Leigh’s lengthy biopic of English artist J. M. W. Turner, the titular artist (Timothy Spall, whom millennials will recognize as Peter Pettigrew from Harry Potter) is an ogre through and through, all grunts, callousness and sexual abuse. How can paintings so sublime and beautiful come out of someone so low and ugly? Beauty, at least in its conventional forms, is scarcely represented in the film. Instead, the material life of Turner is all grubby muslin, hoary whiskers, dirty paintbrushes and skin lesions (of his long-suffering, psoriasis-afflicted housekeeper).
Throughout the film, Turner makes several journeys to get closer to the brutal wonders of nature, the subject of his many heart-stopping seascapes. But why he does it we don’t quite know: he seems more at home amid Dickensian squalor, and he paints without romantic grandiosity. In a few scenes with beautiful women, such as a tender singalong with a pianist and a cathartic visit to the brothel, you wonder if his fascination with portraying beauty might come from being a permanent outsider to its realm. But these glimpses are not explored in the film, which turns into a real snoozer. When Turner (literally) croaks, it’s a relief.
Oh, one more thing. This movie doesn’t pass the Bechdel test—an unforgivable sin in 2015. The only woman character with an inner life is Turner’s housekeeper Hannah (Dorothy Atkinson), who, underneath her knows-no-bounds servility, harbors a whole lot of pain and unexpressed desire. She might just be the closest in spirit to Turner’s art.
