Film Review: Fish Tank (Spoilers)

“C’mon then, let’s get wasted,” says Mia (Katie Jarvis), the 15 year old lead character in writer/director Andrea Arnold’s difficult but powerful look at underclass life in 21st century Dagenham. Mia’s mother Kierston Wareing is ill-equipped as a mother – she wishes she’d aborted her eldest daughter, is directionless herself, and is more concerned with drinking and shagging than showing love or affection to her daughters; it’s scarcely surprising that Mia should be all rebellion, violence and alcohol. She spends her life excluded from school – drinking and fighting – with her only distraction an obsession with dancing. The dysfunctional family faces change when Wareing’s new boyfriend Connor (Michael Fassbender) comes to stay. All positivity and disarmingly sexual, the chemistry between Connor and Mia is clear from the start. Connor’s genial nature however brings the family out of itself – Mia in particular, and he acts like a true father figure, fixing cuts and offering encouragement the likes of which the girls have never before known. His kindness stops their downward spiral from going out of control, and encourages Mia to pursue a possible future in dancing, but their attraction turns out to be mutual after all, and one drunken night things get out of hand…

Far less tough than she imagined, and unable to deal with yet more loss and disappointment, Mia pursues her first lover, and when she finds him, ends up in a terrible spiral of violence and revenge which threatens to engulf them both. All Mia needs is the chance noone has ever given her, but it’s far from clear she can ever define a path she can be proud of against the odds, and in the face of crushing neglect and poverty. Arnold’s semi-documentary work isn’t without humour – Mia’s younger sister Rebecca Griffiths is an excellent comic foil (but herself the subject of at least one highly alarming scene). But it’s the care Arnold takes in looking at this neglected area of British society, alongside a very strong character study, blisteringly well acted by newcomer Katie Jarvis, which makes this really stand out. Jarvis is so comfortable on the screen you’d think she’d spent her formative years in Mike Leigh and Ken Loach films, and the comparison with those greats isn’t inappropriate. The care taken to show what life on the estate is really like – from the orange streetlights at night through to the wafer thin walls and constant barrage of noise, is a touch of class and it justifies Arnold’s having something to say about her subjects and their environment. Do Mia and her family ultimately have a chance of escaping their circumstances? Arnold stays resolutely optimistic but seems to accept that there’s no evidence to back her up. It’s a brave perspective to conclude on, and she’s clearly a director to watch in the future.

8.5/10

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