Fish Tank (MA). Writer/Director: Andrea Arnold. Starring: Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbender, Kierston Wareing. Running time: 123 minutes
Fish Tank is a hard film to watch. It's a laconic, no frills drama — too long, but no less affecting and memorable for it — about the life of a troubled English teen, Mia (Jarvis). Troubled is definitely the word: the film takes us into uncomfortable corners of the cramped and grimy glass tank of Mia's life. Fish Tank is shot in hand-held digital video, giving rougher edges to the already rough working class Essex world in which she lives.
Mia is a precocious, ferocious teenager. Not fearless, but she masks hurt and fear with fury. During a fight with a peer, she delivers a swift head butt to the other girl's face before striding righteously away. Her interactions with her uncaring flake of a single mother, Joanne (Wareing) are verbally rather than physically violent; in this case, Mia's language would be repulsive if she did not get as good as she gave.
But Mia is also compassionate. When she sees a sickly horse chained up in an abandoned lot, she jumps the rickety cyclone fence and attempts to set the beast free. The childlikeness of this kind gesture (after all, what young girl would not be moved by the plight of a horse?) is cut short: the horse's owners, two grown and brutish men, suddenly appear and begin to menace Mia. They attack her, but, viciously, she fights them off (not bad for a 15-year-old girl), and flees.
Life begins to change for Mia when Joanne brings home a new boyfriend, Connor (Fassbender). Mia hits it off with this extroverted Irishman. He encourages Mia with her dream to become a dancer. His treatment of her is somewhere sex-ward of fatherly. The feeling is mutual, and even actively encouraged by Mia. Then again, she is only 15, and he supposedly is a responsible adult.
The film plies a murky fog of sexual ethics, but its portrayal of Connor and Mia's deeply ambiguous attraction is captivating. A scene where Connor carries Mia, who pretends to sleep, to her bedroom and removes her jeans — gently, so as not to wake her — in order to put her into bed, finds a surprisingly fine line between tender and predatory. This kind of subtle, breathless stuff is Fish Tank at its best.
Debut actor Jarvis' performance is astonishing. During the worst moments