Watch Fish Tank For Free

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Everything changes for 15-year-old Mia when her mum brings home a new boyfriend.How much can be said about the effect of a female writer-director on a film? Is it really different than from a male perspective? Generally, I think any difference is exaggerated. My knowledge is strongest with the horror genre, and the female-helmed features are not obviously different. (I am looking at you, Barbara Peeters.) Here, we see a very female-centric tale. How strong the characters are is debatable, but they are definitely front and center. The unorthodox relationship between daughter and boyfriend is told in a way that is more blunt than generally accepted.

Mia (Katie Jarvis) is a volatile fifteen-year-old hip hop dancer living with her white trash mother Joanne (Kierston Wareing) and brash younger sister Tyler. She's been expelled from school and spends her days practicing her moves in an abandoned flat. She tries to free a horse being kept in a rundown lot and is almost gang raped. Conor (Michael Fassbender) is her mother's new boyfriend.Katie Jarvis is a revelation and it's too bad that she didn't get a follow-up career. She's so natural that it's almost like she's not acting. She has both the volatile rage and the touching innocence. I didn't even realize that Fassbender is in this. There is an overabundance of white trash cinema. Writer/director Andrea Arnold should edit this down from its two hour running time.

I watched this movie because of the high rating and because Michael Fassbender is in it, but it left me quite disappointed. The acting was alright but I didn't find any of the characters interesting, so the only reason I didn't quit watching the movie was because I thought it would get better. There is no clear plot, it's more like a documentary about a low class family, filled by anger all the time, and their relationship with a higher class man, who has much better manners but is definitely not a better person. The message of the movie could be just that no matter how educated you are that doesn't make you a better person, but then the approach could have been much more interesting. The movie is not pleasant to watch since the characters are simply being an ass to each other all the time, and what makes it worse is that it has no entertaining value at all. One can argue that the whole point is to be realistic, but there is nothing special in the movie that makes it worthier to watch than simply observing real life if there is not going to be character growth or insights during the 2 hours anyway. What leaves you thinking is simply why would you even care about people who have no moral values and are difficult to bear with?

This film truly has something quite profound and important to say, but does so without straining to say too much. This contradiction is one within which the film operates throughout and which gives it a sense of a painful and claustrophobic reality. Nothing is linear, or obvious, and everything has its moments of humanity and beauty.Desperately trapped in her 'fish tank' of a world, Mia is loud, unpleasant and aggressive. The viewer isn't allowed to get too comfortable with these first impressions and soon we learn that she also clearly yearns for moments of quietness and humanity; this is most starkly symbolized by the chained horse which she is inexplicably drawn to, desperate to release it. There are also moments of solitude devoted to her amateur break dancing, which is filmed beautifully to look almost balletic,giving it the gravity it deserves. Here once again, Mia is trapped within the limitations of her untrained body. There is so much beauty within, which is painfully expressed through her limited physical abilities. The horse is ultimately put down, just as Mia's own hopes of a future as a dancer are dashed.The contradictions continue as Mia makes painful attempts to step outside of her world. Her touchingly naive sense of her own sexuality and power to seduce are in stark contrast to the role of the aggressive little adult that's been forced upon her. So when she is taken by surprise by her mother's boyfriend's sexual advances (even after provocatively dancing for him), and later walks out of the strip-club auditions after, somewhat naively, realizing what they were, it all makes perfect sense. The same girl who wanted to release the horse is simultaneously possibly capable of harming a young child, whilst the man who awakened in Mia a quiet joy in nature and gave her the sense of a caring paternal presence, is also an adulterer, who takes advantage of an underage girl. This is a film that does not seek moralize or preach - it lets the viewer have a sense of agency, but also forces us to stay in that uncomfortable grey area, where, rather than celebrating adversity overcome, we are confronted with it head on and left to draw our own (possibly painful)conclusions. Life circumstances do shape us, but rather than giving us a neatly tied up Hollywood ending, where our protagonist is released from her shackles, we are given a much more quiet celebration of profound moments within a bleak and dreary life and landscape.