Tyrannosaur

Now this is what I call British miserablism! Tyrannosaur, a 2011 film written and directed by Paddy Considine, stars Peter Mullan as an irascible old man. In the first fifteen minutes, he kicks his dog to death, throws a paving stone through a Pakistani business, and gets in a fight in a pub. Then, bleeding and shaken, he runs into a clothing store, hiding behind a rack. The shopkeeper, a religious sort, prays for him, and he's moved to tears.

She's played by Olivia Colman, and the two form an odd friendship. Her life, as imagined by Mullan, is all roses and rainbows, because she lives in a posh neighborhood. But she's got her own hell, a husband (Eddie Marsan) who thinks nothing of beating her, and worse. The two broken souls find comfort in each other, though it spurs jealously from Marsan and leads to some irrevocable violence.

I admired the acting in Tyrannosaur, but there's something sadistic about the way Considine treats his characters. Mullan is quite aware that he is a mean cuss--the title refers to a cruel nickname he had for his wife, who was a heavy woman and died of diabetes. (If there's any other metaphorical use of the title, I didn't pick it up--is Mullan the ferocious dinosaur in question?). But he has a soft spot for the kid across the street, who is terrorized by his mother's boyfriend, who has a vicious dog. He also has a friend who is dying of cancer. I'm not quite sure what we are supposed to make of him--that beneath all that nastiness is a heart of gold?

Colman's character is a bit more rounded. She and Marsan are both religious, but his actions make her doubt her faith (there's a pointed moment when she throws an object at picture of Christ). Colman goes through the ringer in this role, but again, I wonder at Considine's continuous bleak view of humanity.

The ending suggests the characters have reached some sort of peace, but it didn't feel right, and instead plays like a studio-mandated resolution. Considine, who has appeared in his share of these sorts of films as an actor, shows promise, but his next project could do with a bit more subtlety.