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| Newcomer-star Katie Jarvis looks out on the world in a contemplative mood on this poster for Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank |
We follow Mia: She's a 15 year-old girl, who has been expelled from school and has a dream of becoming a dancer. She lives with her single mother and little sister and finds a temporary father figure in her mother's latest boyfriend.
Fish Tank is great English writer-director Andrea Arnold's (Red Road (2006)) second feature; it is a story of a home with a mother who has almost nothing to offer her children, so they in turn suffer for it and become petty violent, sometimes undisciplined brats in her parental absence.
But of course they are more than that. The film focuses on Mia and features eminent performances from debuting Katie Jarvis (Suspects (2014), TV-series) as Mia and Michael Fassbender (Our Hidden Lives (2005), TV movie) as the sympathetic asshole boyfriend. SPOILER As things escalate in Fish Tank, we find ourselves wholly on Mia's side, as we creep to the edge of our seats, thinking 'no, no, no!'
Shot with great skill digitally by Robbie Ryan (American Honey (2016)) and reduced to fit the 4:3 format, only a few shots in near-darkness don't completely work.
Fish Tank is a really terrific film that also has a touching ending. It portrays a young woman's slowly arriving to the real world and some sobering truths about it.
Related post:
Andrea Arnold: Wuthering Heights (2011) - Arnold's take on the Brontë classic is an unusual treat
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 3 mil. $
Box office: 2.4 mil. $
= Huge flop
[Fish Tank premiered 14 May (Cannes) and runs 123 minutes. Jarvis was spotted having a fight with her boyfriend at a train station by the film's casting director and thereafter involved in the film. Shooting took place in England, including in London, from July - August 2008. Jarvis became pregnant with her first child during shooting and gave birth on 9 May 2009. Each week, the cast were given the script to what was to be shot the following week in order for most of the progress of the story to remain unknown for them through filming. The film opened #46 in 2 theaters to a 25k $ first weekend in North America, where it peaked at #44 and in 15 theaters (different weeks) and grossed 374k $ (15.6 % of the total gross), the film's 2nd biggest market. The biggest market was France with 492k $ (20.5 %) and third biggest was Sweden with 348k $ (14.5 %). The film won a BAFTA, an AFI award, 2 British Independent Film Awards out of 8 nominations, the Cannes Jury Prize, 3 European Film Award nominations, a National Board of Review award and many more. Fish Tank is certified fresh at 91 % with a 7.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Fish Tank?
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