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Cinema

Mr Turner: the gruntiest, snortiest, huffiest film of the year - and the most beautiful too

Deborah Ross proclaims Timothy Spall's grunty performance as J.M.W. Turner sublime

1 November 2014

9:00 AM

1 November 2014

9:00 AM

Mr Turner

12A, Nationwide

Mr Turner may be the gruntiest film of the year, possibly the gruntiest film ever. ‘Grunt, grunt, grunt,’ goes Mr Turner (Timothy Spall) as he sketches, paints, gropes his housekeeper, woos a Margate landlady, winds up John Constable something rotten. But what I now know is that when you have Spall doing the grunting, and Mike Leigh at the helm, as both writer and director, such gruntiness can be quite sublime, as can snorting and huffing.

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