Mr Burton: an 'affecting' but flawed biopic

Long before Richard Burton became a star, said Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph, he was Richard Jenkins – "a nondescript miner's boy", one of 13 motherless children, who almost dropped out of school. His transformation, as this "affecting" but flawed biopic has it, was down to the man who gave him his surname: an inspirational schoolteacher called Philip Burton who became his mentor, career guide and "de facto stepfather".

We are introduced to the nascent film star (Harry Lawtey) as a "brooding" 16-year-old with a passion for Shakespeare; Philip (a pitch-perfect Toby Jones) notices his promise and takes him under his wing, dispensing notes on elocution – he tutors the boy to lose his Welsh accent – and encouraging him to apply to Oxford. He pays Richard's alcoholic, homophobic father £50 to make the boy his own legal ward, and moves him into his Port Talbot boarding house – a gesture his landlady (Lesley Manville) warns him is "guaranteed to look fishy".

Philip's implied struggle with his sexuality is invoked "all too bluntly", said Jonathan Romney in the Financial Times: at one point, Richard's father calls him "a poofter" for associating with his "aesthete" teacher. Otherwise, though, this is a rather "cautious", glumly understated film.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

There are some fine performances, said Deborah Ross in The Spectator. Lawtey doesn't quite manage to channel Richard Burton's charisma ("Who could?"), but he does convey his "simmering intensity": by the time the story ends, as the actor skyrockets to fame, Lawtey "has captured something of [his] essence, particularly when it comes to his voice and physical swagger". Yet "serviceable" as it is, Mr Burton "has the feel of a Sunday evening television drama" – and it never really "comes to life".