EVERY MOVIE HAS A LESSON

As beautifully presented as Mike Leigh's "Mr. Turner" is at telling the story of English Romanticist painter J.M.W. Turner, too much of it is uninteresting, familiar in tone, and predictably in execution.  What normally can save a film about an artist is the subject's life beyond his or her work.  An interesting person can make up for the uninteresting content.  Though led by a invested performance from character actor Timothy Spall, "Mr. Turner" can't muster enough of that to separate itself as something special.