FISH TANK

British director Andrea Arnold is on a serious roll.  Her short film, “Wasp” won the Oscar for best live action short in 2005, and her debut feature, 2006’s “Red Road,” won the Jury Prize at Cannes plus numerous other awards in the UK.  In fact, when you include “Fish Tank,” her stunning new feature, her films have won more than 40 awards around the world, and “Fish Tank” has yet to officially open in L.A.  Using bleak British landscapes as a backdrop for complex characters, Arnold has quickly proven herself a force to be reckoned with. 


“Fish Tank” grabs us from the very first shot and drags us straight into the chaotic world of Mia, a fifteen-year-old girl trying to make her way through the grim world of apartment life in Essex, England.  She’s got attitude to burn, thanks to her heavy drinking promiscuous Mum and bratty younger sister. As the movie opens, we discover that the one bright spot in Mia’s life is her strong passion and surprising talent for hip hop dancing.  Even this one escape turns ugly fast. When she spots some of the other girls dancing on the blacktop after school, she lets them know what she thinks of their moves by offering the ringleader a head butt to the face. Mia’s so desperate to escape her surroundings, she attempts to hammer free a horse she finds chained in a neighborhood lot.  All she gets for her trouble is harassment from a couple of the local toughs.


Unlikely encouragement soon arrives in the form of Connor- the latest in a long line of local men her mom has brought home from the pubs.  While most are gone by the next day, Connor sticks around for a while, taking the girls on outdoor excursions, and more important, taking what seems to be a sincere interest in helping Mia foster her talent as a dancer.  He even lets her borrow his video camera so she can record an audition for a local club.  When she shows him the routine that she’s been working on one drunken night, their relationship takes an unexpected turn and Mia realizes that he’s not exactly the father figure she’s been seeking.


Although the two films are very different, “Fish Tank” at times feels like a grittier version of Lone Scherfig’s “An Education.”  Both are compelling coming of age stories where an impressionable girl is swayed by a dubious older man.  But while “An Education” is bittersweet, we’re led to believe that everything will work out for its heroine in the end. The end result of “Fish Tank” is much less certain, but Mia’s fierce tenacity makes us pity anyone who would try to stand in her way.


Arnold’s real success here is in her casting of 17 year old newcomer Katie Jarvis as Mia.  Pulled out of an argument with her boyfriend from a train platform, according to the press notes, Jarvis had never acted before and brings a very raw quality to the role.  She’s center stage for the majority of this movie, and she’s responsible for nearly all the movies’ emotional heavy lifting. Arnold shrewdly casts the charismatic Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds) as Connor,  and his more polished style of acting is a perfect fit for the character and a great counterpoint to the edginess that Jarvis brings.  Fassbender walks a fine line here; he’s convincingly scary at times, but he also has a number of moments with Mia that are filled with real tenderness.  A lesser actor would have played Connor as a monster, but Fassbender gives him depth.


“Fish Tank” is not an easy film to take, but that’s also what makes it so effective.  It’s hard to imagine a Hollywood film taking the kind of risks that Arnold takes with the story, especially in the film’s third act.  These characters are far from perfect; often they’re not even likable, but the cast all do amazing work, and the end result is that we’re able to see flawed human beings struggling to make the best of flawed circumstances.  Arnold works differently than a lot of directors in that she doesn’t give her actors access to the script until filming begins.  By letting her actors discover the story as they go along, Arnold’s careful camera captures the hard ring of truth.

Post the First Comment!