Review of Fish Tank (2009) by Rowena C — 30 Mar 2010

Yet another British produced film to portray the stereotypical rocky childhood faced by so many children living on council estates in the outskirts of many of Britain's Cities.

This film focuses on the life of Mia, a stereotypical Chav character who lives with her Mum, Joanne, and her Sister, Tyler, in a Council Estate in Essex.

Mia is a complicated character that is seen by most as an abusive, grumpy, stroppy teenage girl who hangs around the estate looking for trouble. Throughout the whole of the film we see her frequently drink alcohol and get into fights with various people. But it seems that underneath this Hard Skinned Abusive woman is someone who cares about what is happening in her life and is unable to escape a fate like her frequently drunk mum.

The film starts with us seeing Mia wandering around the estate looking for trouble, fighting other girl groups around the estate area, and getting others to buy her alcohol or just stealing the drink from her mum.

We then see that she has a love for dancing when she moves to an abandoned room in the estate and practices a dance routine.

The film itself is set as what looks like a turn in her life that looks like she may be able to escape the life that she seems to be stuck in at the moment. Her mum's friend, Connor who we see as what appears initially to be a stereotypical male figure on the estate, but he soon develops into a fatherly role for Mia and Tyler of which we are led to believe they have never had. We first start to see him develop as a fatherly figure when she falls asleep on her mums make-up table. Connor moves her to her bed. This is something that Mia isn't useful as we hear her mum yelling in the background 'Just wack 'er and wake her up' but Connor doesn't, he takes time to put her to bed before going back to her mum. Throughout the film he takes the family out for trips to go fishing and other various outings. Both Mia and Connor seem to get a close bond throughout the film even with her mum and sister continuing in the abusive nature that they have only known.

Overall the film develops some what seem very uneducated simple characters, and makes the audience see that they are actually more complicated and emotional than they first appear, but are locked into their lives not by choice but by unfortunate circumstances and lack of luck.

Overall a very good film except for a bit too much focus on the wrong aspects of the film, like the abusive side of things and the deeper parts of the relationships rather than developing an actual story of a normal dramatised film, showing that this film is more developed to showing a stereotypical lifestyle rather than a story of escape from a horrible life.