Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, 2011)

When you get the king of Shane Meadows's kitchen-sink pieces directing the reigning champion of the down-at-heel British realist drama, Peter Mullan, you know that there will be pain and truth in equal measure. It's an unspecified northern town and Mullan is an aggressive alcoholic wreck of a man who meets a Christian charity shop owner whose life is then revealed to be even worse. Things get bad enough that only redemption can come, but this is not fantasyland and hope is a fragile thing.
It takes almost as strong a stomach to watch this as it does to live it. It's utterly truthful, brilliantly acted - Olivia Colman once again proves she's much more than a pair of plummy chops - and while it's not cinema with a capital C, eschewing the potential of the medium to transcend real life simply because the director only wants to get as close as possible to reality without delivering an overt message, it cuts to the bone. You don't have to live on a council estate or be depressed to get something personally significant out of this.

8/10