Tyrannosaur
DIRECTED BY PADDY CONSIDINE
A recent Saturday Night Live digital short entitled Don’ You Go Rounin’ Roun to Re Ro’ lampooned the gritty, slang-laden Lock, Stock-alikes that have proliferated in the wake of Guy Ritchie’s 1998 gangstas-‘n’-geezas debut. Were the SNL crew to try their hand at a send-up of British kitchen sink miserablism, the outcome would probably look something like Paddy Considine’s first feature, Tyrannosaur, which, at times, is parodically grim, even by the genre’s generally sullen standards.
Tyrannosaur is an expansion of the actor-turned-filmmaker’s 2007 short Dog Altogether, named with reference to an Irish expression for a particularly wretched turn of events. Despite the new title, there remains a great deal of wretchedness on show in Tyrannosaur, and much of it is actually meted out to dogs, including a whimpering pooch which takes a fatal kicking in the film’s opening scene. Its assailant and owner is our protagonist, Joseph (Peter Mullan), a widowed, middle-aged, on-the-dole drunkard, prone to fits of apoplectic rage. In short order, Joseph also partakes of some racially motivated window smashing and nearly forces a teenager to ingest a pool cue, before ducking into a charity shop to lay low. Inside, he meets Hannah (Olivia Colman), whose saintly constitution belies a domestic predicament worthy of a Lars Von Trier heroine.
Hannah’s husband, James (Eddie Marsan), isn’t the titular tyrant lizard, but he might as well be. Considine presents him as an utter monster, prone to urinating on his hapless, helpless spouse, as well as to subjecting her to far more egregious abuses. Indeed, to varying degrees, nearly all of Tyrannosaur‘s men are monsters: Joseph’s neighbour is a pit bull–owning maniac, oblivious to the safety of his girlfriend’s young son; Tommy, a drinking buddy, suggests “getting a mob together to Ku Klux Klan” some non-white locals; and of course there’s Joseph himself, who in fact coined “Tyrannosaur” in mocking reference to his late, heavy-set wife, and, it’s implied, probably beat her too.
Considine hammers away at manipulative hot buttons—spousal abuse, child abuse, animal abuse, racism—like Joseph hammers at the shed that used to house his dog, and both acts produce unwelcome effects. Joseph succeeds only in antagonizing his neighbour, while Considine threatens to swallow up his characters’ more shrewdly observed facets, as well as the unlikely, mutually redemptive friendship that Joseph and Hannah forge. Thanks in no small part to two of the best performances of 2011 (from Mullan and Colman) there’s still much to appreciate in Tyrannosaur, particularly as a debut effort. Considine shows definite promise, but could stand to tread a little more lightly next time.