Fish Tank
First screened in October 2009 / Most recently screened and reviewed in October 2024

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Director: Andrea Arnold. Cast: Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbender, Kierston Wareing, Rebecca Griffiths, Harry Treadaway, Jason Maza, Sarah Counsell. Screenplay: Andrea Arnold.

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Twitter Capsule: Arnold gets such charge from images, actors, sounds. Even when this one lapses or wanders, she brings it back on track.

VOR: ⑤  Fish Tank felt stylistically vital and fresh in its perspective in 2009. Its artistic stature and influence have only grown since.

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Photo © 2009 BBC Films/Kasander Film Company, © 2010 IFC Films

Fish Tank is so electric, so athletic in its energy and craftsmanship, and powered by such enthralling conviction at so many levels of story, performance, and on-screen execution that it just breakdances right past the few areas where I might quibble (e.g., the final third feeling more distended than it should, the plotline with the horse's young guardian). I'm wholly in awe of what Arnold achieves here with her crack team, including d.p. Robbie Ryan, editor Nicolas Chaudeurge, and the whole sound & music squad. Katie Jarvis's power, confidence, and fitfully broadcast vulnerability have few equals in this type of rookie adolescent screen performance, Kierston Wareing conveys a lot about her young mother without much screen time, and Michael Fassbender ought to have magnetized a whole shelf's worth of awards gold. A personal favorite, despite and because of how it's exhilarating and upsetting in such comparable measure. Grade: A–

(I originally wrote this review on Letterboxd.)

(in October 2009: B+)

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Awards:
	Cannes Film Festival: Jury Prize (tie)
	British Academy Awards (BAFTAs): Best British Film
	Chicago International Film Festival: Special Jury Prize; Best Supporting Actor (Fassbender)

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