Mike Leigh’s Mr Turner was one of the most anticipated films of 2014, receiving rave reviews since it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Timothy Spall (also in Leigh’s Secrets & Lies) stars as the revolutionary 19th century British artist J.M.W. Turner. The film introduces Turner at the height of his artistic powers, and follows him into old age in an episodic style. While Turner’s faults are plain to see (not least his treatment of many of the women in his life), Spall portrays him with sympathy and humour.

Turner is surrounded by a Dickensian cast of characters played by many of Leigh’s regular actors, including Dorothy Atkinson as his housekeeper, Marion Bailey as his landlady and Lesley Manville as his friend, the scientist Mary Somerville. Scenes at the Royal Academy of Arts give a comical insight into the rivalries between artists. We also see how the encroaching industrial revolution impacts Turner’s life and work.

Fittingly for a film about an artist, Mr Turner looks beautiful. One of the highlights of the film is the way cinematographer Dick Pope recreates many of Turner’s famous works on the screen. The scene that reconstructs Turner’s painting “The Fighting Temeraire”, which depicts a warship being tugged away to be scrapped, is sublime. ‘The painter of light’ is well served by this luminous film.