Mr Turner

The name is renowned, but the eponymous film is one of those which invite that fundamental filmgoing question: what's it about? Plot-wise – even with its two-and-a-half-hour run time – the answer is: almost nothing. There's no rise and fall or grand romance. Turner begins the film as an acclaimed artist and ends it only slightly less so. His relationships ebb and flow, some steadily growing deeper while others slowly starting to fade. No dramatic breaks or sudden passions. Mostly, things just gently carry on.

It's a captivating movie all the same for two main reasons: Timothy Spall and Mike Leigh. Spall's Turner grunts his way through whole conversations before bursting into sprawling surges of grandiloquence and wit. He is equally entertaining in both modes. Leigh's camera (under cinematographer Dick Pope's command) matches his subject's eye for the sublime, following Turner to the sources of his inspiration and gracefully drawing out their beauty. [Ross McIndoe]