Hmm …

… Cinema as Time Machine - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I quite agree that the film succeeds regarding the depiction of "the quotidian facts of 19th-century life in England," but regarding the portrayal of Turner the artist I didn't find much there there. At one point, Turner has himself tied to a ship's crow's nest during a storm. Presumably, this has some connection to his painting of storm scenes. But that connection is never made. He just catches a bad cold.  Turner comes off as a self-centered crank. Maybe he was. He certainly became pretty eccentric in his later years, but there must have been more to him than that.  I did not find that the film told me anything about Turner's art, only that it was created by someone I would have crossed the street to avoid.