CIFF Review: FISH TANK

Chicago International Film Fest 2009 – Review: Fish Tank

“Fish Tank” as in: confined, transparent quarters. Like a zoo, or a prison cell. Not a terribly original metaphor, but a plausible one, especially considering the environs of the film. Unfortunately, outside of the metaphor, the title had no tie-in with the movie. Sure, there was a scene with a fish–but it was a wild fish, and it didn’t live long enough to be put into a fish tank. I kept expecting some sort of symbolism. Perhaps I just took it too literally.

Questionable title aside, the movie was actually quite good, and very engrossing. Mia (Katie Jarvis) is a 15-year old hellion of a child. She lives with her mother and younger sister in the dirty, cramped, and perpetually noisy housing projects of Essex, England. She watches TV shows about the rich and glamorous, dances to rap and hip-hop in an empty apartment upstairs, and drinks whenever possible, all to escape the drudgery around her. She’s trapped in the “fish tank” of hopeless poverty. She is angry most of the time, and always searching for something to be angry about.

When her mother brings around Connor (Michael Fassbender, Hunger), her new boyfriend, Mia finds a perfect target for her rage, despite her own fascination with the man. He is handsome. He treats Mia and her family well. He seems too good to be true. So what does he want with them? As Mia begins to trust Connor, she confides in him her plan to audition as a dancer, as a way to avoid being sent off to a boarding school and perhaps to get out of the projects. And as it all comes crashing down–as it was bound to do–we watch Mia struggle to cope as the confines of her world seem to close back in around her. This picture is pretty bleak, for sure, but not entirely without hope.

Writer and director Andrea Arnold offers beautifully crafted insights into her characters through their actions, avoiding the kind of self-aware, sometimes mushy dialogue trap that movies such as this can easily fall into. Mia shows both compassion and recklessness in her repeated attempts to free an apparently mistreated horse, despite being chased off and nearly assaulted by the horse’s owners. Connor, on a weekend drive to a country pond, displays both resourcefulness and humanity by catching a fish with his bare hands and then killing it quickly, albeit in a harsh fashion. Later, we see the fish carcass carelessly thrown to the dog rather than being cooked for dinner, indicating a certain flippancy that contradicts Connor’s earlier mercy. These insights–combined with Arnold’s sparse, often vulgar dialogue–create a taut, unsettling story that neither pities its subject matter nor patronizes its audience.

One other subtle point I particularly liked about the film: the first thing you hear, even before the first shot of the film, is Mia breathing heavily, almost gasping for air. We hear this breathing again a few times throughout the movie, at moments of emotional intensity. Perhaps moments when our little fish Mia escapes–for a short time–from the imprisoning waters of her fish tank? Maybe there’s more symbolism here than I originally thought.