Andrea Arnold’s verité aesthetics can often be pronounced to
the point of affectation, but unlike in her thriller Red Road, this approach is reasonably well suited to the
kitchen-sink realism of Fish Tank.
Arnold’s second directorial feature adheres to a rather archetypal
coming-of-age narrative in which angry Essex, England fifteen-year-old Mia
(Katie Jarvis) enters into a relationship with her skanky, neglectful mother’s
(Kierston Wareing) alluring new boyfriend Connor (Michael Fassbender). Arnold’s
jittery camerawork gets at her protagonist’s fury and rage as well as the
instability of her present condition as a wasteful, perpetually pissed wannabe
dancer roaming dilapidated projects, trash-strewn streets and stormy
coastlines. Alas, that same cinematography also often proves self-consciously
accentuated, leading to a stylistic unevenness to match the filmmaker’s jagged
storytelling. Mia’s insecurities, her anger at her upbringing, and her desire
(epitomized by her fondness for Bobby Womack’s cover of “California Dreamin’”)
for a happier life in which affection isn’t expressed through “I hate you” are
all depicted with striking naturalism. It’s a shame, then, that the underlying
plot follows a routine path, not to mention one saddled with leaden symbolism
like a fish dying in a grass field or a white horse chained up in an abandoned
asphalt field. Still, in a POV shot of Mia watching Connor remove her shoes and
pants before tucking her into bed, and a latter scene (lit primarily by a streetlamp
shining outside a smudgy window) in which the girl showcases her dance routine
for Connor, Red Road empathetically
attunes itself to its heroine’s clumsy attempts – often modeled after her lousy
parental role models – to understand and deal with her sexual awakening. And
though the script’s Mike Leigh-ish working-class miserablism is undercut by an
ill-fitting bit of third-act suspense and an unearned optimistic finale, the
film’s rough patches are nonetheless considerably smoothed over by its
performers, with ferocious newcomer Jarvis exuding potent adolescent confusion,
anger and yearning, and Fassbender marrying force-of-personality magnetism with
subtle treacherousness.
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