In praise of Tony McNamara

American audiences did not exactly flock to the Benedict Cumberbatch-Olivia Colman comedy The Roses last weekend, but those who did may have been pleasantly surprised, as well as appalled. Although the publicity and trailers took care to stress that it was the new film from the director of Meet The Parents – and certainly some of the more elaborate set-piece slapstick scenes bear the hallmark of the filmmaker Jay Roach – the true auteur of the picture should be regarded as the screenwriter Tony McNamara, who was previously responsible for the Yorgos Lanthimos collaborations Poor Things and The Favourite, both of which saw his screenplays Oscar-nominated.

The 58-year-old McNamara is an unlikely late bloomer in Hollywood circles. Although he was reasonably well known in his native Australia, where he wrote and created numerous television series, it was not until he was brought in to rewrite 2018’s The Favourite that he moved into the industry A-list. That screenplay was co-credited to McNamara and the British screenwriter Deborah Davis, but since then he has moved from success to success, honing an inimitable, profanity-heavy form of dialogue that is equal parts Paddy Chayefsky, Aaron Sorkin and Joe Orton. There is no screenwriter today who uses the word “cunt” more eloquently or more amusingly, and indeed its well-deployed use in The Roses by its British stars leads to much of the film’s hilarity, and shock value.

McNamara currently occupies an interesting place in Hollywood. His work on the surprisingly good Emma Stone/Disney picture Cruella showed that he could come up with biting one-liners that didn’t rely on obscenity for comic effect, but his Lanthimos screenplays and The Roses specialize in the kind of barbed, horribly quotable dialogue that leads audiences to howl with laughter even as they have to double-check with one another that, yes, they did just hear that particular misanthropic utterance flying past, with the speed and deadliness of an arrow.

His films are exceptionally fine works indeed – even The Roses and Cruella clearly show that he is the maestro at creating dialogue that actors love to spit out at one another – but, for my money, his greatest achievement to date was the truly remarkable Hulu series The Great, which somehow ran to three seasons and featured the likes of Nicholas Hoult, Elle Fanning and Gillian Anderson giving some of the greatest performances of their careers. The series was filmed in Britain (the country, you feel, that is closest to McNamara’s heart, given that all his recent projects have been shot there) and deals with an absurdist view of the lives of Catherine the Great and Peter the Great in eighteenth-century Russia. It was hilarious and horrifying in equal parts, never shying away from bleakness or nastiness, and the sheer quality of the writing was recognized by the Writers Guild of America, who bestowed two consecutive awards on McNamara.

There are potentially more tedious things in the future – a Star Wars picture, apparently, to be co-written with Taiki Waititi and a comic book film – but these are bill-paying jobs that, hopefully, the writer can work his unique alchemy on, a la Cruella. He began his career directing his own material and hopefully an enlightened (and brave) studio will allow him similar control over something of his own creation in the future: McNamara unchained is a fascinating, giddying prospect indeed. Still, even when he’s working in mainstream cinema, he’s head and shoulders above the competition – The Roses has a Great Expectations joke all the better for not being spelt out – and this latest, hilarious instalment in a very distinguished career is a cherishable joy. The characters might be going through their own hell, but the screenwriter has created a very specific, very sweary comedic heaven. We are fortunate to be in his orbit.