Director: Andrea Arnold (Red Road)
Screenplay: Andrea Arnold
Producers: Kees Kasander, Nick Laws
Starring: Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbinder, Kierston Wareing, Rebecca Griffiths, Harry Treadway, Sydney Mary Nash
Year: 2009
Country: United Kingdom
Running time: 124min.

(4.5/5)

Three years ago, Andrea Arnold burst onto the scene with her first feature Red Road, a slowly-paced but incredibly rewarding thriller set at the edges of Britain’s working class. She has outdone herself with Fish Tank, in which she continues to find inspiration from the working class, this time focusing on teenaged Mia, struggling with school and a shrill, messy home life, keeping her head afloat only through her enjoyment of dance and possibly her relationship with an older man. If this sounds like the premise of a sappy, inspirational coming of age story, trust me, it doesn’t play like one. What I said above is basically the synopsis that appears everywhere for the film, and though it approximates what happens in the film, it’s wholly inadequate to describe it.

The major catalyst in the film is her mom’s new boyfriend, Connor, who appears in Mia’s life suddenly, treats her like an adult, and seems to understand better than anyone else how she thinks. Exactly what Mia and Connor’s relationship is and what it will become is kept ambiguous by Arnold for a long time – there’s a father-daughter dynamic at play, certainly, but also something else. It’s not difficult to guess the ultimate outcome, but Arnold makes it work – I’ve got to hand it to a filmmaker who can make me hope against hope that something won’t happen but then convince me that it was absolutely right for the story when it does.

There’s not necessarily a lot of plot to go on, and what does happen often seems to have little lasting effect (I’d argue that it does have a lasting effect, just not an immediately obvious one), but that’s not why this movie is great. It combines the immediacy and grit of Arnold’s realistic portrayal of the working classes with a highly artsy, almost ethereal quality at times when focused solely on Mia – two styles which here never fight with each other, but work harmoniously to build a beautiful portrait of a person and all the things that form her. The film is never boring, even when little is happening – there’s a simmer, a crackle underlying every scene and every shot.

Mia’s family are loud, vulgar, and inconsiderate, and so is Mia a good portion of the time. But Arnold doesn’t ever condescend to her characters – she meets them where they are, and newcomer Katie Jarvis turns in such an electrifying performance as Mia that you’ll never once feel that the coarse exterior she portrays to protect herself is all she is. She and her little sister call each other names and greet each other with “I hate you,” but there’s never a sense that they don’t care about each other (and the sister is incredibly funny, too). Though everyone in the film turns in great performances, the film belongs to Jarvis. She’s brilliant in every scene, and Arnold’s assured but low-key style lets her shine. We will be hearing much more out of these two, I’m sure.

Fish Tank won the New Lights Competition at AFI Fest 2009 (shared with Woman Without Piano), has won prizes at the Cannes and Chicago Film Festivals, and recently received eight nominations at the British Indie Awards (more than any other film this year). It is due to release in the United States in 2010 through IFC.