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Fifteen-year-old Mia is in a constant state of war with her family, her school and her neighbors, without any constructive creative outlet for her energies save a secret love of hip-hop dancing. When she meets her party-girl mother’s charming new boyfriend Connor, she is amazed to find him returning her attention, and believes he can help her start to make sense of her life – though his seemingly tender demeanor may hide a much more treacherous interior.
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| Also Known As: |
Fishtank
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| Production Status: |
Released |
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| Logline: |
Fifteen-year-old Mia’s world is turned upside down when her mother brings home a new boyfriend. |
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| Genres: |
Art/Foreign, Drama, Musical/Performing Arts and Teen |
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| Running Time: |
2 hrs. 2 min. |
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| Release Date: |
January 15th, 2010 (limited) |
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| MPAA Rating: |
Not Rated |
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| Distributors: |
IFC Films
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| Production Co.: |
The Kasander Film Company
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| Financiers: |
Limelight Fund, BBC Films, U.K. Film Council
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| Produced in: |
United Kingdom |
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Mia lives in an housing project in Essex with her criminally indifferent mother (Kierston Wareing) and her little sister Sophie, who like Mia, seems unable not to say anything that is not a curse. What we quickly come to understand is that both of these girls have to learned to put on a tough front, but their hard veneers crack when Mum brings home a new boyfriend, the charming Connor (Michael Fassbender).
His appearance in their lives almost seems too good to be true — and of course, it is. Connor means well, but he is Mia’s mother’s boyfriend. And Mia, always dancing, thrusting and gyrating to hip hop, is an obvious temptation. It’s hard not to watch Arnold’s gritty drama as if it’s not a horror film. Mia seems so tough — early in the film, she head butts another girl, breaking her nose, but at the same time, she seems sure snap right in half, as tightly wound as she is.
When wronged, Mia does not accept defeat. Katie Jarvis is achingly good. Mia’s life can go either way. A botched attempt at revenge is positively scary. Fish Tank is unremittingly bleak, but somehow, allows room for hope. “I hate you,” foul mouthed Sophie tells her sister at the film’s end — which means, of course, “I love you.” Mia hates her, too.
