Fish Tank Review

Posted by Erik Luers on 02.05.2010

Rage against the machine..........

Katie Jarvis ... Mia
Michael Fassbender ... Connor
Rebecca Griffiths ... Tyler
Jason Maza ... Liam










As I sit here with pen in hand trying to think of enough descriptive words and exuberant praise and hyperboles to thrust upon Andrea Arnold's new film, Fish Tank, I find myself confronted with the urge to just tell you fine folks to stop reading this review, go out, and see it for yourselves. It is, in this newly birthed year, the best film of 2010. This may change, of course, but the film's breathtaking raw power and emotionally charged energy cannot, or better yet, will not. Part urban domestic drama and part coming of age tale, Arnold's film, while not grounded in realism, is a superb case study of tense-filled naturalism, focusing on a pretty fifteen year old girl with more problems than our current American economy. She has been kicked out of school for being rude and violent (that is, when she actually shows up), she has no friends, her mother is an uncaring, neglectful alcoholic, and her future prospects? Less than dim and down in the dumps. She is an angry young woman, crying desperately for attention and lashing out against the ones who try to give it to her. There is one man, however, that will turn out to be different, but oh, what a pity he will become.

Before I get too ahead of myself, let me first identify our young heroine and the remarkably talented girl who plays her. Our character is Mia and the actress embodying her, Katie Jarvis. It's important to make that distinction early on, as one may wind up easily mistaking one for the other. This is an excellent, well versed performance for it captures the emotional brevity of a deeply internalized figure. To get out her buried anger, Mia dances to hip hop music in a small secluded area overlooking her brightly lit, industrialized city. She puts on the loud music, gets into her zone, blocks out the exterior world, and dances ferociously, trying to better herself at the one thing she feels remotely good at. Sometimes, when's she's done, she'll drink herself to dreamland, or go across the street and fight with other rehearsing teen dancers (is she insecure or does she feel excluded? Maybe both). In the real world, she is a loner, but she finds the art of dance immensely therapeutic, and that (barely) helps get her through the day. Could Martha Graham say the same?

Although our story centers around a young, post-pubescent girl, the film is not a “teen movie.” Then again, films that deal with real, believable teen issues wouldn't be fit for that age group to view, anyway (at least according to the MPAA's standards). She is frank and vulgar (do-you-kiss-your-mother-with-that-mouth terms like fuck and cunt get tossed around like they're going out of style), troubled and confused. When you meet her mother, you may understand why. Arnold presents this maternal figure as drunk and whorish and mentally absent from her children's lives; she's into parties and men and her men are into parties and her, sometimes quite literally. When she brings home a new handsome lad, Connor (played by the ever overachieving Michael Fassbender), we get an uncomfortable, creepy vibe right off the bat. He enjoys watching his girlfriend's daughter dance in her underwear in the kitchen. There's something off about him and immediately our guards are up.

Arnold doesn't take the easy way out however, resisting the opportunity to vilify one character and strengthen the other. Connor may seem a little risque at first, but we warm up to him, however wrongly flirtatious he may sometimes appear to be. He takes his girlfriend and her two daughters, Mia and her insultingly comedic little sister, to a beautiful countryside park/lake. He rolls up his pant legs and heads into the water to try and catch a fish with his bare hands. He asks the women for help, but only Mia agrees to it. Connor then catches a fish as Mia cuts her foot on something in the water. The two other ladies walk off, a little disgusted by the still flopping fish, as Connor cleans Mia's bloodied foot. She notices a tattoo of a woman's name on his body. “Just an ex-girlfriend” he claims. Hmm. He then tells her to jump on his back so that she doesn't further aggravate the cut by walking in the grass. She obliges, and the two seem to bond. The very next scene, involving a CD, a car stereo, and the two dancing playfully in the parking lot, may change that, or perhaps it will do something else. Mia has developed a schoolgirl crush and is embarrassed by it.

Another fairly recent British film, An Education, dealt with a young woman coming into adulthood by starting a relationship with an older man (the hosts of At The Movies compared Fish Tank to both An Education and Precious, two films which do not possess the same gritty power as Arnold's work). Fish Tank digs deeper and more practically than Lone Scherfig's film (although I do not wish to discredit her well acted, sincerely witty drama), becoming more about sexual violation than sexual empowerment. Jenny, the lead in An Education, is a bright girl, well off, and with a head on her shoulders, financially stable parents and a prosperous future ahead of her at Oxford. Mia has no father, no education, no strong household, and no (foreseeable) future. When Jenny starts up a relationship with an older debutante, we feel this sexual rendezvous will run its course and teach Jenny some valuable and commendable life lessons. When Mia's mother starts her sexual escapes with Connor, we feel she is being taken advantage of and exploited; Connor is getting off on screwing neglected street trash. Society has disowned them and left Mia to the blood-thirsty wolves.

Arnold employs her fair share of visual symbolism throughout the film, and one character — nonhuman — sums up the physical confinement which Mia feels within her household. It is a white horse of which I am referring to, chained and trapped in a not so quite abandoned junkyard. The animal, at least through Mia's eyes, is viewed as cold and alone, waiting on the inevitable day of its expiration. Mia tries to break through the chains several times and set the horse free, only to be interrupted by a couple of roughhousing young men. They steal her belongings and try to feel her up. Kicking and screaming, she finally breaks free and runs home — the horse, on the other hand, is not as lucky. With a relationship both spiritual and existential, Mia and the horse share the same sense of entrapment. Sure, Mia can run, but where can she go? And if she were to free the horse, what would she do with it? We are confound by where society places us. Mia finally learns to believe otherwise.

Refraining from giving away any further key elements, let me just say that I think the film takes a turn towards greatness in its final third, when Mia comes across some startling evidence on Connor and takes matters into her own hands. That she is wrong to do so goes without saying, and Arnold shows us a confused, conflicted teenage girl going on instinct and putting innocent people in grave danger. Mia wants to wrong the one who has done her wrong, and in the process is doing further damage to the situation at hand and criminalizing her intentions. The director presents us with very dark material, and her work with actors (especially with a very young one here) is impeccable. In a sense, one can tell Mia regrets her impromptu decision even as she's making it. This sequence allows Fish Tank to morph from a searing drama into a realistically taut nail-biter.

The film is anchored by its two leading performers, Jarvis and Fassbender, and let us hope critics groups remember and recognize them in the Fall of 2010. Jarvis is a very earnest performer with an expressive face and subtle body positioning. Observe the scene where she sits down on the couch with Fassbender after the mother has gone upstairs to bed. Jarvis sits away from him, out of reach of his impending advances. When she moves closer, she looks uncomfortable but not unwilling, and Fassbender is sleazy but freakishly father-like. The two actors handle this unpleasant exchange remarkably well, and this also holds true for an earlier scene in which Fassbender undresses a drunken Jarvis and observes her developing figure. Tough scenes for any actor, but these two commit to them fully and give Fish Tank its depth and backbone. As Arnold reveals hidden secrets about these characters, the film and these performances go even further; a quick, wordless scene in a darkened empty field is tough to watch, with the physical abuse only adding the exclamation point.

Like many urban dramas, the film, shot with handheld shaky-cams, focuses on a troubled youth who is trying to break out and become something better. The movie is not pessimistic, but it does accurately depict the seemingly dead end lives our characters find themselves enclosed in. When Mia goes to her much anticipated dance audition, she comes across a discovery that encourages her to break the cycle and try for something more, but can she given her emotional environment and surroundings? Arnold implies, both visually and narratively, that she can: our final images are of a hopeful woman off to Wales and a balloon floating up towards the sky, away from the confinements of home.

The 411: Yeah, I know, the title, Fish Tank, is a little strange. You may be wondering what it means, what the symbolism is behind it, yadda yadda. No worries. See the movie and contemplate it after the fact. Here's another 2009 Cannes entry you may have missed, and it's a damn good one. Great performances make this one something special, and the direction is amazingly self-assured. It's also available on IFC On Demand (not the ideal way to see these films, but if it isn't playing in your area, it's a great alternative). See the movie, come back, and read what I wrote above. Fish Tank is a highlight.

Final Score:  9.0   [  Amazing ]