Age: The painter William Turner is 225. Director Mike Leigh’s film about him is a good deal more recent.
How much more recent? 224 years more recent to be precise.
Any good? The critics loved it and Timothy Spall, who grunted his way through the part of Turner, was named best actor at Cannes. Audiences were less sure, put off by the length, the orotund language and the complex narrative structure.
Why bring it up again now? Because the film has just been given another award.
How marvellous. What is it? The most complained about film of the year.
Ah, that’s less marvellous. Who were the complaints made to? The British Board of Film Classification, which publishes an annual list of the most moaned about movies.
And what were the complaints about – the rather episodic nature of the storytelling? Doubts about factual accuracy? Questions concerning the film’s patriarchal vision of Victorian society? No. Sex!
Sex? Yes, the great British viewing public took exception to the scene in which Turner, while honking like a pig, takes his long-suffering housekeeper from behind as she hangs on to a sturdy bookcase.
How disgusting. That’s what the complainants thought, especially in a film rated 12A.
What most upset them? Spall’s “clothed buttocks”, which are seen “clenching vigorously before the scene cuts to a close-up of his face and his thrusting head and shoulders”.
And how many people complained? Nineteen.
Hardly a tidal wave of vituperation. It’s been a quiet year.
What other films attracted complaints? 12 Years A Slave was runner-up, with 12 people complaining about a rape scene.
What about past years? Jack Reacher took the palm in 2013. Batman, another 12A deemed too strong for kids, holds the record in recent years with 300 complaints. The Railway Children also attracted a complaint in 2013 – its first in 40 years.
Ah yes, the undercurrent of sexual tension between Bobbie and the doctor. What a filthy mind you have. The complainant was worried the film would encourage children to play on railway tracks.
Not to be confused with: Bambi, a sordid tale of sex, death and terror.
Do say: “Get a life.”
Don’t say: “It’s a-Spalling.”
