Saturday, 29 June 2013

Tyrannosaur (2011)


Hannah: I prayed for you last night.
Joseph: Yeah, well, it didn't fucking work.
Hannah: Why did you come here?
Joseph: I was just passing.
Hannah: There must be a reason. Do you want God to forgive you for something?
Joseph: [laughing] I don't want anything from that fuck.
Hannah: God loves you. You're a child of God.
Joseph: God ain't my fucking daddy. My daddy was a cunt, but he knew he was a cunt. God still thinks he's God. Nobody's told him otherwise. 
Hannah: Why are you so angry at God?
Joseph: Why are you so fucking stupid? I've met people like you all my fucking life. Goodie goodies. Make a charity record. Bake a cake. Save a fucking soul! You've never eaten shit. Don't know what it's like out there. Don't have a fucking clue.

Joseph (Peter Mullan) is a self-pitying widower with a history of violence. Hatred is all he has to offer to the rest of the world and he is always taking it out on someone weaker. When he kills his dog in a fit of rage, his world becomes only lonelier. One day he wanders off into Hannah's (Olivia Colman) store, and thus starts a friendship from mutual respect and understanding that is formed out of misery in their respective lives. Only that Joseph thinks he is the only one in the world who is hurting and insults Hannah for what he thinks are her petty troubles in a privileged life.

When he learns about Hannah's abusive husband, James (Eddie Marsan), he slowly starts to mend his own ways too. His need to save Hannah and his hesitation in doing so suggests about his own violent behavior when it came to his dead wife since it takes him on a trip down memory lane. And when Hannah finally leaves her husband to temporarily take shelter at Joseph's place, he again starts losing it as he finds it difficult to cope with the arrival of someone in his otherwise lonely life.

Meanwhile, we also meet Joseph's little friend, Sam (Samuel Bottomley), who lives down the street. Joseph is protective about Sam, who lives with his mom and her abusive boyfriend. Things take an ugly turn between Sam and his mom's boyfriend that makes Joseph feel responsible. When Sam is attacked by the dog that belongs to Sam's mom's  boyfriend, Joseph describes the incident with the dog to Hannah by saying, "an animal can take only so much punishment and humiliation before it snaps, and fights back". It's almost as if he is describing his own change of ways, and the chain of events that follow that made him veer off his track and back to his previous self.

Debutant director, Paddy Considine, gives us a tense drama about the hopelessness of some people's miserable lives. Violence begets violence, unhappiness begets unhappiness. Excellent acting from both Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman makes these characters so real, it will stay in your head for a long time. A must-watch.

Rating: 8/10

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