Sorry, this movie sucks

So much average

good back-story, and good acting

Excellent adaptation.

I feel like I've seen this movie before but I can't quite rememberOr maybe this is just how Fish Tank is able to relate to the audience. It's hands down a very realistic approach to a common story.I do love how low key the movie is. Absolutely no melodrama in anyone's performance. Very minimum story. It feels more about the flow of real life.The filmmaker makes that seem like an easy task.I don't know if there is such a thing as organic film making but this is it, no artificial flavors of preservatives.The slight bit of story focus on a 15 year girl, named Mia living in a harsh area who has a dream of being a hip hop dancer.Michael Fassbender is in the movie playing the boyfriend of Mia's mother. From the moment he comes on the screen you get the feeling of what his intentions are. Fassbender seems to do well playing the likable villain.I really like how so much was said with so little very natural.http://cinemagardens.com

Fish Tank is an English film that follows the life of Mia, played by Katie Jarvis, a troubled 15-year-old in a lower-middle class town in England. Mia is getting into fights at school, fighting with her mother who seems to not care about her at all. Her mother spends most of her day drunk, catering to a revolving door of men coming into her life. The only way Mia can cope with her troubles is by dancing. She aspires to be a hip-hop dancer. Spending most of her time watching American rap videos and practicing their dance moves. Her life begins to change when her mother starts a relationship with a man named Connor, played by the always fabulous Michael Fassbender. Conner seems different from the other men that Mia's mother brings home. He seems to be caring, kind and has a steady job. As always, things are quite what they seem. Fish Tank unfolds like many teen angst films. The environment feels authentic and the acting is top notch. This is especially true for newcomer Katie Jarvis. Her anger is overwhelmingly apparent. There is also an innocence in her that makes her whole story heartbreaking. You can't help but feel bad for her and wonder how different her life would be if she was living somewhere else and being raised by caring parents. Mia yearns to be free of her current life. She comes across a horse that is chained up and seems to be neglected. She tries to free the horse. Showing a gentle, caring side of Mia. The horse is also a metaphor. She wants the horse to be free, just as she wants herself to be free of her troubled life in the toxic environment that is the town she lives in.

As someone who took Media Studies for 5 years in secondary school, reviewing a movie should really be a walk in the park. However, I really don't feel like any words I could string together would do this movie justice - but I am going to try. We follow Mia, a 15-year-old aspiring dancer who has been forced to grow up ahead of her time because of the environment she lives in, the people she interacts with and the borderline negligence of her own mother - A woman who would rather drink herself silly and try to preserve her dying youth than face her children and be reminded that she has responsibility for people younger and less independent than she is. Mia is at the centre of a lot of controversial events, such as paedophilia and kidnapping, creating a movie that is somewhat hard to watch, even if you may not be able to tear your eyes from the screen. She makes a lot of bad decisions throughout the movie, but that does not make her character unlikable. Everything Mia encounters builds her character up to the young woman we see at the end of the film, leaving with a friend to go to wales for an undetermined period of time. This is when we see the closest moment between Mia and her family, sharing a dance with her mum and a heartfelt hug with her younger sister, Tyler. The almost hand held camera work and use of only natural lighting made for a very real experience with nothing held back, depicting perfectly what life for a lot of the poverty stricken families in England is like.

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.