&lt;div class=&quot;track&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.2/31?ns=guardian&amp;pageName=Is+Tyrannosaur+%27poverty+porn%27%3F%3AArticle%3A1647786&amp;ch=Comment+is+free&amp;c3=Obs&amp;c4=Poverty+%28Society%29%2CSociety%2CPaddy+Considine%2CPeter+Mullan%2CDrama+%28Film+genre%29%2CFilm%2CCulture&amp;c5=Society+Weekly%2CUnclassified%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CCharities%2CFilm+Reviews&amp;c6=Jason+Solomons%2CNatalie+Haynes&amp;c7=11-Oct-16&amp;c8=1647786&amp;c9=Article&amp;c10=Feature%2CComment&amp;c11=Comment+is+free&amp;c13=The+debate+%28series%29&amp;c25=Comment+is+free&amp;c30=content&amp;h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free&quot; width=&quot;1&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;standfirst&quot;&gt;Some critics have accused Paddy Considine&#039;s gritty directorial debut of being misery tourism for the middle classes&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h2&gt;Natalie Haynes, broadcaster and critic&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;p&gt;So, here&#039;s my problem with Paddy Considine&#039;s directorial debut feature film, &lt;em&gt;Tyrannosaur&lt;/em&gt;: I think it has some tremendous acting paired with a script of such unceasing bleakness that, when I reviewed it, like a number of critics, I had no idea who I could recommend it to.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;It opens with Joseph (played by Peter Mullan) leaving a betting shop and kicking his own dog to death. Hannah (Olivia Colman) is a Christian woman running a charity shop who tries to help him, but provokes a violent response from her psychopathic husband (Eddie Marsan). Joseph&#039;s neighbour &ndash; a little boy &ndash; is repeatedly bullied by his mother&#039;s boyfriend and seems in constant peril from the guy&#039;s vicious dog. I don&#039;t want to give the ending away, but there are two unambiguously &quot;nice&quot; characters in the film, both of whom get physically and emotionally brutalised. There&#039;s one man who is merely drunk and racist. And all the other male characters are violent and murderous. I found it veered into the territory of misery tourism (and misandry): a film that will only show to middle-class audiences, asking us to come and look at how bestial people on estates live. I know that not every film has to be &lt;em&gt;The Full Monty&lt;/em&gt;, but I found the negativity so relentless that it shut me down. I realised, after an hour or so, that I didn&#039;t care what happened to any of the characters: I either hated them or pitied them, and that isn&#039;t enough.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;h2&gt;Jason Solomons, Observer film writer&lt;/h2&gt;&lt;p&gt;Without doubt, &lt;em&gt;Tyrannosaur&lt;/em&gt; is a tough watch. However, the portrait it paints, both of its characters and its setting, is not what I&#039;d call bleak. I&#039;d say it&#039;s rather hopeful and humane, but maybe that&#039;s me sitting in my comfy screening-room chair in media-land Soho, feeling some pity for the poor sods on the screen and not knowing how hard it is for them to pull themselves out of their hell? But I really don&#039;t think it is that. I felt horror, pain, sadness but actually not pity. Pity is a cheap sentiment in art &ndash; sympathy and empathy are what good films demand of their viewer and &lt;em&gt;Tyrannosaur&lt;/em&gt; has that by the pint glass. I admit, I didn&#039;t fancy the film much going in as I&#039;d heard a lot about it being grim. But its overriding traits are honesty and commitment, from director and performers. Maybe those accusing it of being &quot;poverty porn&quot; don&#039;t think it&#039;s authentic, but its unhappiness isn&#039;t confined to the council estate &ndash; Olivia Colman and Eddie Marsan live on a middle-class estate, and their misery is perhaps greater than anyone&#039;s .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NH&lt;/strong&gt;: I agree that sympathy and empathy are what art requires of us. But I think that &lt;em&gt;Tyrannosaur&lt;/em&gt; fails on that front. The script lets it down: the big moment of humanity and togetherness comes at the wake for a man Hannah barely met. Suddenly, the humble poor launch into song in a pub together &ndash; exactly like the scene in &lt;em&gt;Educating Rita&lt;/em&gt; that really drives home to Rita that she no longer belongs with her own family and friends. But there, the scene is used in an ironic way &ndash; they&#039;re so bonded and she is so isolated &ndash; while in &lt;em&gt;Tyrannosaur&lt;/em&gt; it just seems like a cliche: Hannah suddenly realises that she can be safe and happy with these people. Also, I think if you are going to aim for grittiness, you need to be realistic above all else. And the idea that Hannah, a woman with a strong Christian faith, has no friends to whom she can turn is pretty unlikely. Has she never been to church? Never met anyone there? I think the plot of the film needed her to be friendless. Which is the wrong way round, for&amp;nbsp;my&amp;nbsp;money.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;JS&lt;/strong&gt;: Olivia Colman is wonderful as Hannah, although a Hannah completely without sisters, as you point out. But isn&#039;t it all a front with her? She&#039;s a liar and a coward to herself, shying away from the truth of her relationship at home, cowering in shame from the abuse and covering up her alcoholism with a veneer of religion. Just as she goes to the charity shop for work, she may go to church in the way that Peter Mullan&#039;s Joseph goes to the pub &ndash; to sit alone. That singalong scene is a false note, I agree, but I think the film&#039;s saying: sod the supposed places of social interaction (church, boozer, shop), you can quite easily erect a barrier or wear a mask so that no one will go near you. Joseph&#039;s is violence and rage, Hannah&#039;s is humility and fear. The film&#039;s tension and release is seeing how these two come together. Would you rather it was all lovely and tea-cosy, such as in &lt;em&gt;Made in Dagenham&lt;/em&gt;, or art-directed like a shop window, such as in &lt;em&gt;Angela&#039;s Ashes&lt;/em&gt; or &lt;em&gt;The Color Purple&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NH&lt;/strong&gt;: Ha &ndash; I never really care about art direction (I know, I am the worst film reviewer ever). I care most about the story, always, and so long as that rings true, I can live with anything else. But no, I didn&#039;t find her to be a liar, and I didn&#039;t see her faith as a veneer. I think she gave a tremendous portrayal of a woman so paralysed by constant low-level (and sometimes high-level) abuse that she was simply shuttered down. Paradoxically, I think the power of all their performances was the film&#039;s undoing, in a way. Once again, I don&#039;t want to spoil the ending, which makes it tricky to argue this point, but here goes. I think the sheer molten horribleness of James (Hannah&#039;s husband), the ill-controlled aggression of Joseph and the martyred suffering of Hannah lead the film to a point where, to go all Aristotle for a moment, the desis is too tightly bound. The tying-up of the plot of a tragedy (desis) gets to a point where we long for the lusis (sudden unravelling of it all). And in this film, the performances make that unravelling almost impossible, so they have to go for, &quot;One year later&hellip;&quot;, which again seems cliched to me.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;JS&lt;/strong&gt;: &quot;Poverty porn&quot; does exist in movies, certainly. Even the honourable Ken Loach has sometimes been guilty of fetishising the working man. I find it happens when the director identifies in some glaringly autobiographical way with the outsider character, the little angel amid the squalor, the one who does want to read a book, go to university or get a job to get out of the ghetto/small town/suburb. Ricky Gervais&#039;s &lt;em&gt;Cemetery Junction&lt;/em&gt; was like that, and many sub-&lt;em&gt;Boyz n the Hood&lt;/em&gt; gangsta-style movies, too. I don&#039;t feel that with Paddy&#039;s film at all. Here, all the characters want out of their situations and it&#039;s all observed with tender compassion by the only God cinema ever knows, the director. If the chattering (or twittering) classes like me are guilty of peeking through the muslin curtains at how the other half lives, then it&#039;s only the general complicity involved in any viewing &ndash; I don&#039;t know what it&#039;s like in space, but I believe the world of &lt;em&gt;Alien&lt;/em&gt;, for example; same with hard-scrabble westerns or those little slumdogs or the favela kids in &lt;em&gt;City of God&lt;/em&gt;. When properly done, you only ever end up caring for a character. British social realism is a strong force in world cinema &ndash; when Karel Reisz and Lindsay Anderson did it in the 50s and 60s, it was considered &quot;good for you&quot;. I agree it&#039;s a turn-off for mass audiences who don&#039;t want to make an effort, perhaps, to spend 90 minutes on an estate like the one they live on or next to (I get enough of that at home, as the old critical saying goes), but if the masses are allowed escapism in the cinema, why not the comfy bourgeoisie, too?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The only audiences who&#039;d be disappointed by &lt;em&gt;Tyrannosaur&lt;/em&gt; are those moaning there wasn&#039;t a bloody dinosaur in it, like the scheming prostitute played by Lucy Punch in Woody Allen&#039;s &lt;em&gt;You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger&lt;/em&gt; who complained to her pretentious sugar daddy (Anthony Hopkins), after suffering through a visit to the theatre, that Ibsen&#039;s &lt;em&gt;Ghosts&lt;/em&gt; wasn&#039;t even scary.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Tyrannosaur is out now&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;related&quot; style=&quot;float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/poverty&quot;&gt;Poverty&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/paddy-considine&quot;&gt;Paddy Considine&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/peter-mullan&quot;&gt;Peter Mullan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/drama&quot;&gt;Drama&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;author&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/jasonsolomons&quot;&gt;Jason Solomons&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;author&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/natalie-haynes&quot;&gt;Natalie Haynes&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;terms&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk&quot;&gt;guardian.co.uk&lt;/a&gt; &amp;copy; 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. 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