When watching the first few minutes of Fish Tank you would be forgiven for lumping it in with the usual straight to DVD foul mouthed shit that the British film industry provides on an almost weekly basis. The films central character Mia (Katie Jarvis) exerts her dominance by head butting another girl within the first ten minutes. It doesn’t take long though before the story establishes an emotional depth that most Danny Dyer vehicles could only dream off.
Mia is fifteen years old and lives on an estate with her boorish mother (Kierston Wareing) and cocky little sister (Rebecca Griffiths). She spends her summer days either just walking the streets or practising her dance moves in one of the empty flats adjacent to where she lives. Her dream is to be a professional hip-hop dancer, not that she will admit it. She mostly hides her thoughts and ambitions behind a wall of insults and abrasiveness. However when her mother brings home a new boyfriend Connor (Michael Fassbender in another brilliant performance), things start to change. For better or worse, his presence slowly brings Mia out of her shell.
Directed by Andrea Arnold, this is a sterling combination of realistic story telling with a tale of lower class dreams. Mia isn’t driven to succeed in spite of disability or poor surroundings. In fact she isn’t driven to succeed at all. It’s not until Connor gives her a brief glimpse of self-worth that she finally decides to go to a dance audition. The rest of the time she resigns to the fact that her dreams are just that. The almost total lack of idealism is what makes the film stand out. This isn’t 8 Mile where the main character is going to become a loco hero. The best thing anyone can really hope for is to find their place within their means and achieve as much contentment as possible. By the end of the film, one of the main things Mia had learned is that the only person she can really rely on is herself. Which is a very bleak fact for any fifteen year old to have to face. The idea that the film conveys so perfectly though, is that even if Mia’s future doesn’t look too bright, it is at least in her control.
4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment