Joseph (Peter Mullan) soon finds a source of salvation, after childishly ducking behind a rack of second-hand clothes in the local charity shop. Enter Hannah (Olivia Colman), the soothing and maternal store clerk who offers Joseph a prayer and brings him to inebriated tears.

That maternal quality comes into focus when, upon Joseph’s return to the shop, Hannah confides in him that she has had trouble getting pregnant. Unfortunately, this is not the end of her problems at home.

We go home with her one night to find her fallen asleep on the couch, waiting for her husband. James (Eddie Marsan) arrives piss drunk in the wee hours to have a wee—as the British might say—on his wife. A couple of days later Hannah returns to the shop with a black eye from “a fall in the tub.”

Tyrannosaur does not stop there. It is in the company of even darker deeds that Joseph and Hannah's relationship continues to flourish. First time writer/director Paddy Considine reflects these pervasive animal instincts in the title, as well as the title of his short film Dog Altogether, from which the current story and characters (and actors) have been adapted.

At first glance, it does not appear to be a film brimming with characters of “inner beauty.” However, by the time the credits began to roll, I had trouble remembering a film I had seen over the last year that displayed such a level of humanity, let alone capacity for forgiveness and redemption (Christian or otherwise).

Typically we would find the more negative approach; where we’re shown a world with beauty on its surface, only to discover the murky complexities that lie beneath. As the film’s audience, we move from innocence to experience. In aligning us with Joseph off the bat, a character wearing his anger like a thick coat, Considine moves us in the opposite direction—sort of. He takes for granted that we understand the hideous world that Joseph inhabits.

At this point Considine's job is simple. He must convince us that perhaps this world is not so hideous after all. Or, alternatively, that we're more familiar with that hideous world than perhaps we'd like to admit.

Neither task seems fit for a rookie writer or director. Yet for my money, this rookie manages to accomplish both with gravity and style, thanks in no small part to a couple of staggering career performances from Mullan and Colman. My advice: go see this movie, before you're left to dig it up on DVD.