Directed by Andrea Arnold
Andrea Arnold’s first film (Red Road) was set on a Glaswegian housing estate and her second feature film (Fish Tank) is also set on a council estate (this time in England), and both have won prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. At the centre of this social realist drama is fifteen year-old Mia (Katie Jarvis) who is at war with everything. Excluded from school, she feels trapped by her surroundings. Not knowing how to get out, she vents her anger at everyone around her. She attacks other girls on the estate, verbally and physically, and gives her younger sister Tyler (Rebecca Griffiths) a hard time as well. Mia hates her self-absorbed mother Joanne (Kierston Wareing) who is fairly useless at mothering anyway.
As Mia wanders around the neighbourhood, it only seems like a matter of time before her temper will get her into trouble. Fortunately there is some hope in the form of Connor (Michael Fassbender). When her mother starts seeing him, she sobers up, starts cooking meals and spending more time at home. Joanne immediately likes the father substitute who takes them on drives and has fun with them but Mia is more wary. Gradually, she is won over as Connor shows a genuine interest in her and supports her dancing aspirations. But just as Mia lets her guard down, the audience becomes aware of the increasing inappropriateness of Connor’s interest in Mia.
Mia wants to escape her surrounds and, like many directionless females before her, sees either Connor or the young man she met as being able to provide an escape route. But all the characters in this film seem to have affections for the wrong people and there is something disturbing yet compelling about the developing closeness between Mia and her mother’s lover.
Lezly Herbert
