Since his performance as Karl Childers in Sling Blade over 15 years ago, Billy Bob Thornton has reigned supreme as the actor who manages to say and mean the most with just a grunt. Well, he's now in danger of losing his crown to Timothy Spall as English artist JMW Turner. Spall's guttural gymnastics here and the amount of meanings offered therein - 'yes', 'no', 'maybe', 'really?', happiness, sadness, anger, to name just a few - are among the many highlights of Mike Leigh's gorgeous biopic of a gifted man who, just like the rest of us, was a mass of contradictions.
Even if you know next to nothing about art and could care less about period drama Mr Turner makes for great company.
The film chronicles Turner's later years, opening with him in front of a windmill in Holland at sunrise. From the very start you wish there was a pause button built into the seat so you could just lose yourself completely in Dick Pope's cinematography. And there's even better to come.
Leigh, Spall and Pope show us that just as there were many Turner paintings, there were also many Turners: the devoted and warm son, the employer who had rough sex with his housekeeper, the uncaring father, the celebrity, the restless spirit and the lonely man among them. From studio to mansions to the great outdoors, Spall is mesmerising, spending two years learning to paint for the role and looking and moving every inch the artist. If you've loved Spall's work since his breakthrough as Brummie Barry in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet it's deeply gratifying to see one of the great character actors with the freedom of a leading man. Having been nominated for two BAFTAs for his work with Leigh on Secrets & Lies and Topsy-Turvy, the award should finally be his, and the supporting cast of Marion Bailey (Turner's lover, Mrs Booth), Paul Jesson (his father) and Dorothy Atkinson (the housekeeper, Hannah Danby) are also richly deserving of recognition.
As for Leigh, the four-time BAFTA winner and seven-time Oscar nominee seems, at 71, to be defying the ageing process. He puts as much energy into his direction as a man 40 years his junior and disproves Tarantino's theory that directors, like boxers, have their time to shine - Mr Turner ranks with his best. There's a wonderful rhythmic quality to Leigh's dialogue which banishes much of the stuffiness of period drama and makes the characters as compelling as any of his fictional creations. At two-and-a-half hours, perhaps 15 minutes could have been trimmed, but the moments where a long film feels like a long watch are few.
There's more than one genius at work here.
Harry Guerin
