Fish Tank Film Review 

Fish Tank was released in 2009 and was promoted at 62^nd Cannes film festival in France, May 14, 2009. It’s a British drama film and was written and directed by Andrea Arnold. The film won many awards including a jury price at the film festival in addition to that it won the 2010 BAFTA for best British film and the best film award at the evening standard film awards. The director Andrea is an award winning director and actress from England. The further films she has directed are Red Road, Wuthering Heightse, Wasp and Dog. The films she makes she doesn’t really use famous people, as it’s hard to exceed that awareness. She likes working with unknowns or people that have not acted before, as with actors your aware of who they are. That’s what makes her film unique, as you see and can relate to more of a real person. And this is done in Fish Tank, as a casting agent saw (Katie Jarvis) who plays Mia in Fish Tank fighting with her boyfriend on the train station. And therefore thought she would fit in well in the play, which she did as it was more so real.

(Katie Jarvis) plays Mia a difficult 15 years old who lived with her mum and sister in a counselling estate, and is zealous about dancing. Katie had no acting experience before, so it was her first time acting in this film. No one would therefore be familiar with her, so they didn’t know what to expect from a young in experienced person. (Michael Fassbender) is a well-known actor and has acted in many films like, Magneto, Inglourious Basterds, X-Men: First class and Prometheus. He plays Connor in the film fish tank, previously having acting experience he was nominated a few times for best supporting actor. (Kierston Wareing) has starred in; it’s a free world, the take and has been nominated for awards. The audience wouldn’t of have been well aware of the former actress, as she hasn’t had major roles. In the film she stars as Joanne and is Mia’s mum, also Connor’s boyfriend. The main star who the audience would've recognised is Michael Fassbender, but the rest have either no experience or would've played small roles.

The film is about a troubled teenager Mia who is angry at everything around her, she feels helpless and alone. Living an underclass life with her single mother and sister is difficult as they don’t seem to connect and have that bond. There’s not much love shown to her, therefore she is her own person. However, she has a hobby and is passionate about dancing to hip-hop music, doing this Mia feels like she’s in her own world, feels content while doing this every week or so in a room which is of no use. However, things change for the troublesome teenager, as her mum has a new boyfriend who is majority of the time in the house. It’s hard for her to be nice to him, but he always shows a friendly side to Mia displays love. Although liking the attention and compassion she is stuck in the middle as she is confused, whether it’s fatherly love or a different kind of love. However we come to acknowledge that Connor is instantly attracted to her and Mia feels the same way too.

Connor encourages Mia to pursue dancing and go and audition for the dance off. So she applies, and he helps her by lending her the camera and being overly nice which she likes, and later gets accepted for the auditions. As he’s the only one interested in her dance, he ends up seeing the dance which she is going to perform. Mia selects his favourite song to dance too which shows dramatically that she he’s significant, but after that unexpectedly they end up sleeping with each other,  afterwards Connor realises that he has made a big mistake and ends up leaving the family. The mother not knowing that Mia has slept with him, starts panicking as she is unaware of why he left her. Then we come to see how Mia finds out he is married and has a child, and thus is worried as she is coming back to reality. Plus how she had something so nice for a while, but it just vanished like that coming to acknowledge the truth. We see the things she does that represent her anger at life after finding out about Connor and at the end there’s a strange twist and what the audience want to expect to happen doesn't.

The film is an emotional diverse drama which is far off from a feel good movie. It shows the negative outlooks, it’s something that some of us can relate to in a way. It sets the expectations of the film as at the end of it we expect to not have that good feeling. It proves us right and shows the complex side to cinema. The soundtrack went well with the scenes that showed, as it sets the scene for us before-hand and we have that emotional feel to it which is really good. This film is aimed at teenagers over 15 mainly because there is a vast issue for teenagers today not getting jobs, and some remaining on drugs, drinking etc. So watching the film could relate to their situation, and thus can put themselves in Mia's shoes and really identify with her. Moreover, for the teens who have an easy going life can see another side to teenagers. How their life can be, and if someone shows love to them how easily it is to be trapped. I would recommend it as the society are all stereotypical about teenagers, but after watching this film you sort of understand the reasons behind it. The hurt behind the attitude and the actions they take that foreshadow it.