Tyrannosaur is pretty much the worst kind of movie there is. From the opening scene in which our lead kills his dog to the end credits, all this film does is beat you over the head with terrible event after terrible event. Some movies feel as though this is the most effective way to make a viewer feel emotion, and maybe it is. But it’s all false emotion. It’s just depression replacing the total nothingness that is actually happening in front of you.

The movie is about two people trying to get over their troubling pasts by establishing a friendship, and the most interesting aspects in the film come when the leads are simply getting to know one another. Similarly, I can’t say Tyrannosaur is totally without merit; there are moments in the movie that I liked. It was sporadically funny, and there were one or two charming scenes. However, I’m not entirely sure they were actually good, or if myself and the audience were just happy to not have to watch whatever terrible imagery writer/director Paddy Considine throws at us. I am confident that this movie was well-acted, particularly in the case of Olivia Colman, but that does not make up for the general lack of substance the rest of the movie had. Possibly the worst aspect of the movie was that, even below the surface of its general awfulness, the only idea behind it was something along the lines of ‘things suck all the time for everybody, so make do.’ Almost on cue, whenever something any less than ‘the worst thing that has ever happened to anybody’ occurs, you know the next scene will elevate the depression once again.

This movie upset me, but perhaps not in the way it wanted to. I recognize that it was trying to be sad in order to get at something more, but the problem was that there really was nothing to this film. It was just depressing scene after depressing scene until the audience was finally given the respite of the lights fading up. On the way home, I had to stop in at a bar for a drink… not to discuss the movie, but to try to forget about it.