Film review: Tyrannosaur

Peter Mullan is Joseph, a vituperative widower capable of such cruelty that he even scares himself. The very first scene demonstrates Joseph’s destructive nature. Coming out of the pub, he boots his faithful waiting dog in the ribs in a drunken rage, and then carries the dying animal home, grief-stricken. Some people gave up right there and walked out of the screening, but you can’t say Considine hasn’t warned you about the nature of his beast. Tyrannosaur is brutal and unsettling, but Considine’s directorial gaze is steady, and he also has the grace of a cast that knows better than to play on the heartstrings.

Mullan is a tough, gifted actor, who shakes off sentimentality like a dog leaving water and is always compelling and nuanced.

Tyrannosaur is an expansion of Dog Altogether, an acclaimed short Considine made in 2008, which starred Mullan and Olivia Colman. Colman is still best known for comedies such as Peep Show and Rev, but she’s terrific here and when things get especially bleak, she’s one of the reasons to keep watching. She plays Hannah, a Christian woman who runs a charity shop on Mullan’s Leeds estate. Joseph is drawn to her after hiding out in her shop, first confiding in her, then cruelly abusing her and her faith.

The fact she tolerates his gruff needling suggests a woman who takes Christian charity to new levels, but gradually it emerges that for Hannah, Joseph is simply the lesser of two evils. Back at home, there’s a luxury car in the driveway and a duplicitous, abusive husband (Eddie Marsan) in the house.

It’s also through Hannah that Considine draws a contrast between Joseph’s disordered life and his neat and tidy home, and encounters friends like his barfly pal Tommy (Ned Dennehy), a dreamer, a drinker and a casual racist.

Even as Joseph takes steps forward – steadfastly comforting a dying friend, and realising that the child next door (Samuel Bottomley) needs someone to fill the vacancy as a father figure – he takes steps back. He’s a coward, who usually backs down in confrontations, and consequently his first instinct is to withdraw from Hannah when he learns about her domestic situation, because he knows he’s bad at dealing with other people’s baggage. Often characters like Joseph are portrayed as oblivious to their flaws, but Joseph is bitterly self-aware and it’s partly self-disgust that fuels his anger; he tells Hannah that he used to call his late wife “Tyrannosaur” because she was big and awkward. “I thought I was funny, but I was being a c***.”

The dank hopelessness, the speed and chaotic nature of the violence in Tyrannosaur sometimes make the film feel deliberately overloaded with horrors, but Considine has redemption in mind, albeit a redemption that is almost as brutal and unpredictable as Joseph’s rages. Gripping, sorrowful, and incendiary, this is admittedly a tough sell for audiences experiencing a depression of their own. Would it help if I said it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen so far this year? Because it is. v

Glasgow Film Theatre, Cineworld Edinburgh and Edinburgh Cameo from Friday; Cineworld Aberdeen and Aberdeen Belmont from 14 October.

Rating ****