In a word . . . Turner

Maybe it’s an age thing. Early for the film, I was all on my own, and so settled into the best seat in the back row. Bliss was it then, ’till anxiety arrived bearing sweets.

All seemed well initially as other filmgoers dispersed among the rows of seats. Then, enter a noisy middle-aged couple fumbling in the dark. Nearer and nearer they came. Surely the darkness meant they’d head for the nearest seats? They didn’t.

Braced, as they came nearer, a consolation as they came into my row was that they’d sit at a decent distance. They didn’t. They plonked down right next to me and with much sound to my fury as the film began.

Then he, beside me, decided to take his coat off. He did so with a lengthy struggle and it felt like the film would be over before he stopped. Seated again, he took out a bag of sweets, each individually wrapped, which he unwrapped with noisy ceremony as she, at whim, plunged her hand into the noisy bag for a good old rustle around before taking out another to unwrap. Repeatedly.

Throughout all of this I remained sullenly silent, braced, bound in. Such remarkable restraint. But I had become more absorbed by the indifferent rudeness of this pair than anything happening on screen.

It intrigued me how two people of some seeming sensibility could be so apathetic to the effects of their actions on those around them. How do people get like that? How do they get away with it? The mystery of it all? And nothing is as beguiling as mystery.

The film was Mr Turner, about the English artist of that name. Beautifully photographed, with a stunning central performance by Timothy Spall, it is hard work. Reviews described it as "challenging".

It is. Effectively plot-less, it seeks to portray his life without narrative form. Not unlike his paintings, but without the splash.

But you can see 31 of Mr Turner’s original works at the National Gallery this week, as in January of each year. But, be warned, you’ve only five days left.

From Middle English, the word turner is rooted in the Latin tornare, "to polish, round off", and refers to a person or thing that turns or who works a lathe. Its use as a surname can be traced to 12th-century England.

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