Review of Fish Tank (2009) by Shane F — 14 May 2011

The narrative structure of "Fish Tank" is so loopy I'm getting dizzy just thinking about it. At times quiet and restrained, the movie sets a troubled girl as the centerpiece with a temper the complete opposite of how the rest of the film is built. It's almost like 15-year-old Mia (played by impeccable newcomer Kate Jarvis) is purposely fighting against director Andrea Arnold's regime, even if it's what she signed up for. "Fish Tank" practically creeps in its conflict so quietly you'd be fooled to pinpoint its exact starting location. It so happen to be in a wonderfully inept scene in Mia's home kitchen, when a handsome stranger named Connor ("Inglourious Basterds" charmer Michael Fassbender) walks in from mum's bedroom to catch her dancing along to a music video on TV. As soon as she sees him watching she cuts loose, and fast. But it's too late. Connor has his eyes set on Mia. She tries to seem distracted, but Connor reads it as hard to get; for him or some other boy she's not telling about, it doesn't matter.

Writer-director Andrea Arnold has a star in the making with Jarvis, and each avowedly grip problems they intermittently run into and themselves create; the line is often blurred. As with a movie as lost in the translation as "Fish Tank" the real attraction is the atmosphere, here a dreary London province where the sun only shines in places far away. It's in those places Mia feels most relaxed, thus most forgiving. She's willing to let Connor off the hook because, as she repeatedly says, he can't possibly understand their family after just a few days of hanging loose. But he's practically living with them already. Connor gels so nicely with Mia's clan since he's been in these sort of situations many a time before. Mia wishes she has, too, being confined to such a spiteful environment. They're fairly selfish people who hide their shame in emotional adversity, Connor with a cigarette full of secrets pursed between his lips and Mia a straw in her mouth she can't see leads to the outcome of her own innocent dreams.