Mike Leigh‘s Mr. Turner is set to premiere in competition at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, which kicked off today to what appear to be rough reviews for Olivier Dahan and Nicole Kidman‘s collaboration on Grace of Monaco. I was never quite sure why they chose to open with that film in the first place given all the negative buzz swirling around the film’s post production, but oh well, mistakes happen and Mr. Turner is one we can look forward to hearing better things about.
The film explores the last quarter century of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner (Timothy Spall). Profoundly affected by the death of his father, loved by a housekeeper he takes for granted and occasionally exploits sexually, he forms a close relationship with a seaside landlady with whom he eventually lives incognito in Chelsea, where he dies. Throughout this, he travels, paints, stays with the country aristocracy, visits brothels, is a popular if anarchic member of the Royal Academy of Arts, has himself strapped to the mast of a ship so that he can paint a snowstorm, and is both celebrated and reviled by the public and by royalty.
Check out two new clips directly below along with two more new pictures from the film, which Sony Classics has already dated for a December 19 release. I can’t wait.
