This movie is a gentle foray into screen legend Richard Burton’s Welsh childhood. At times it’s a little slow-burn but situates us in a world that’s hued with gloomy interiors and golden lamplight. Nicely acted and neatly packaged, MR BURTON is more than just a biopic, the title not only refers to the iconic Welsh actor, whose voice would crack the world in half, but also the teacher and theatre director Philip Henry Burton (PH), who gave the star his name.
This classy film transports us to Port Talbot, 1942, where a young Richard Jenkins, masterfully captured by Harry Lawtey, joins his first theatre group.
Philip (the excellent Toby Jones) spots something in this kid and teaches him how to perform, how to project and protect his voice and how to understand Shakespeare. In time, Richard, whose drunken father cares naught for him, moves in with Philip and his compassionate landlady, Ma Smith (Leslie Manville).
The narrative is fascinating, exploring how talent requires nurturing but also touches on issues of fame, personal demons and importantly, that no one makes it on their own. Director Marc Evens softens the story’s edges with period designs and emotional narrative highs. But its Toby Jones’ central performance that carries the powerful emotional kick. Jones combines humour, passion and empathy to make Philip a beautifully rounded character.
Because Lawtey’s character was destined to be a coal miner like his drunken single dad, Richard’s story is compelling, especially as he discovers acting and changes his life’s trajectory against the odds. The path to his breakthrough performance eight years later plays out against obstacles, fallouts and lots of excessive drinking.
The chemistry between Philip and Richard is heart-warming, as is his warm and sparky friendship with the wonderful Ma. The film feels a little long as it moves through the various chapters of Richard’s rise, but issues constantly come up that have a strong gravity especially, relating to mentorship, adoption, fatherhood and mutual inspiration. The script touches on attitudes from the period that makes us ponder deeper reminding us how even the most towering artist can come from the earthiest background.
Not many are aware of the reason Burton changed his name. The name change was suggested by an RAF friend of PH’s who was in charge of a scholarship scheme for young airmen that sent them to study at Oxford for six months. The move was partly to allay suspicions of what would have been judged as an illicit relationship between PH and Richard, who began living in the same boarding house, and to underline PH’s status as Richard’s legal guardian. It also helped disguise the young actor’s mining-town background which also threatened his progress.
By the time we zoom onto Richard’s big moment, playing Prince Hal at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford, his alcohol consumption and smoking has grown out of control, as has his arrogance. What the scriptwriters intimate is that it’s a veiled replay of his relationship with his old companion PH whom he viciously attacks and calls a nobody when PH visits him in Stratford. Jones is on top form, projecting a melancholy that seeps in to his eyes.
Sadly for Richard Burton, his addictive behaviour would become the norm and prove impossible to throw off.
MR BURTON is screening in cinemas now.
