Watch The MR. TURNER Trailer

MR. TURNER explores the last quarter century of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851). 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.

Awards season alert – An official selection at the Cannes Film Festival 2014 and playing on Sept. 8 at the Toronto International Film Festival 2014, Timothy Spall won the Best Actor prize at Cannes in May.

Here’s a look at the latest trailer for the film.

The latest picture from 7 time Academy Award nominee writer/director Mike Leigh stars Timothy Spall, Dorothy Atkinson, Marion Bailey and Lesley Manville.

Leigh said Turner, “was eccentric, anarchic, vulnerable, imperfect, erratic and sometimes uncouth. He could be selfish and disingenuous, mean yet generous, and he was capable of great passion and poetry.

MR. TURNER is about the tensions and contrasts between this very mortal man and his timeless work, between his fragility and his strength. It is also an attempt to evoke the dramatic changes in his world over the last quarter century of his life.”

Sony Pictures Classics will release the film in theaters on December 19, 2014.