TYRANNOSAUR Written and Directed by Paddy Considine (UK, 2011)
As part of my ongoing research into British films and national identity, I have just re-watched Paddy Considine’s Tyrannosaur (2011), one of a small but select sub-genre of films directed by well-known actors exposing the menace of toxic masculinity. Others are Gary Oldman’s Nil By Mouth (1997) and Tim Roth’s The War Zone (1999).
The working title of my book is Mirror Visions and will look at how British cinema has reflected and shaped national identity from the 1960s to the present day. The above three films will be included in a chapter entitled ‘Unbecoming Masculinity’.
Tyrannosaur was developed out of a 15 minute short Dog Altogether (2007) whose stated aim was “to start a film with a man kicking a dog to death, and to try and get an audience to end up caring about him.” This is a tall order and within this short time frame there’s little to indicate why this hate-filled, violent and destructive man should be deserving of our sympathy. One viewer on You Tube was unconvinced and commented “Films like this should be banned, no wonder we’re in a sick world.”
Tyrannosaur expands the story of the short and begins with a similar harrowing scene of Joseph (Peter Mullan) killing his dog. In a voiceover at the start of the film Joseph says “An animal can only take so much humiliation before it snaps” , an observation that can be taken as a reference to the man, not the dog.
The title has nothing to do with dinosaurs but is taken from the cruel nickname Joseph invented for late wife who suffered from obesity. Despite this, poster designer Dan McCarthy created a striking image of a dinosaur skeleton buried underground with a shadowy figure above carrying a weapon stands above between two leafless trees. This is intended to represent the terrible impulses that lie beneath the surface of everyday life. Marketing a film in this manner gives a strong hint of the horror in store for viewers and sends out a clear ‘this is not a love story’ message.
On the one hand, Tyrannosaur is what one American NPR critic, in a positive review, called a slice of “British get-me-a-pint-and-shut-your-trap grimness.” The fact that the happiest scene is a boozy sing-song after a funeral supports this point of view. Another American reviewer, of the New York Post, was less complimentary and called the film a “sorry British art-house exploitation picture.” The unsparing rawness of the film’s themes mean that many audience comments are variations of the notion that it amounts to little more than misery porn.
The antagonistic line from the U.S. suggests a culturally bound slant to the criticism. The idea of “British art-house” as some kind of oxymoron lies at the root of such misplaced negativity. The tacit message seems to be that we Brits should stick to our place by churning out glossy heritage dramas and anodyne romcoms.
Paddy Considine said “I’m not interested in life being bleak. I’m not a social realist” and expressed loathing for the fashionable hand-held documentary style of ‘gritty’ filmmaking. Producer Diarmid Scrimshaw backed up the director by rejecting the stereotypical notion that any British film set on a council estate must automatically feature a cast of drug dealers, prostitutes and criminals. However, whatever the filmmakers’ intentions are, independent projects with serious themes like Tyrannosaur are unlikely to reach a mainstream audience and are thrrefore destined to be labelled as ‘art movies’ by default.
The film shows depressingly familiar scenes of men for whom violence and sexism is second nature. Their social lives revolve around getting pissed in the local pub, picking fights with neighbours or strangers and slagging off foreigners. The everyday sexism, violence and racism is a given. Sadly, all this and the drab setting in a Northern suburb is all too identifiably English and mitigates against Considine’s aim to make a film that finds some hope amid the bleak surroundings.
One of the boldest aspects of the film is to show the brutal consequences of domestic male violence from a female perspective. The abused wife Hannah (Olivia Colman) is caught between a rock and a hard place. The fact that she seeks out the help of Joseph after being viciously raped and abused by the husband James (Eddie Marsan) shows how desperate she is. “I feel safe around you” she tells Joseph to which he replies with chilling conviction “No one is safe around me”.
Joseph initially thinks Hannah is no more than a “goody-goody” Christian living a privileged life in a posh executive home. This assumption is turned on its head, as is the idea that only feral families live on council estates. The moral of the tale is to warn against the presumption that poverty is a principal cause of urban violence, a falsehood as unsustainable as the notion that wealth leads to tenderness and compassion.
Perhaps a clue towards understanding where all the aggression, hatred and abuse stems from lies in the song by Irish singer-songwriter Damien Dempsey which plays out over the closing credits to Considine’s film. One powerful line in ‘Sing All Your Cares Away’ tells of a violent young man who is “consumed by rage, like his father at his age.”
Negative traits in men like Joseph in Tyrannosaur are often passed down from generation to generation. The actor Peter Mullan has made no secret of the fact that he can play destructive drunks like this with such conviction because he used to one himself. He can also draw upon the bitter memories of his own alcoholic father who was violent to his mother. This has fed into the creation of other aggressive roles in British films like Ken Loach’s My Name Is Joe (1998) and Terence Davies’ Sunset Song (2015).
Songs like Dempsey’s and brave films like Tyrannosaur highlight the fact that unless these vicious cycles within families are exposed and broken they will continue.
Fortunately, Olivia Coleman wasn’t a victim of abuse herself but did thorough research in order to do justice to the part of Hannah. Her conclusion after speaking to many battered women puts the film in context: “Even though it’s a powerful film, what Tyrannosaur shows is very mild compared to what some of these people have gone through.”
