Fish Tank is a forceful, deeply depressing movie, less enjoyable than Arnold's Red Road, but not quite as pessimistic.
Comment
09/18/09
Fish Tank (2010)
88
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:83
Fresh:73
Rotten:10
Average Rating:7.6/10
Consensus: Cannes Jury Prize-winner Fish Tank is gritty British realism at its very best with flawless performances from newcomer Kate Jarvis, and Michael Fassbender.
Rated: 15
Genre: Foreign Films
Theatrical Release:11-09-2009
Synopsis: FISH TANK is the story of Mia (KATIE JARVIS), a volatile 15-year-old, who is always in trouble and who has become excluded from school and ostracized by her friends. One hot summer's day her mother... [More]
Starring: Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbender, Harry Treadaway
Director: Andrea Arnold
Reviews for Fish Tank
Fish Tank feels electrifyingly bold. And yet, taken as a whole, it’s frustrating.
09/11/09
A vivid portrayal of life at society’s margins with a compelling turn from newcomer Jarvis. Little wonder it scored at Cannes.
09/11/09
Top CriticA quietly intense, strikingly shot coming-of-age drama, Fish Tank establishes Andrea Arnold as a lyrical chronicler of marginalised Britain.
09/11/09
Top CriticArnold draws flawless performances from her cast while making exemplary choices with her camera.
09/11/09
Top CriticArnold works wonders almost everywhere in this film: the drip-drop drabness of kitchen-sink drama is stilled, alive, and newly dangerous.
09/11/09
Top CriticA lean, empathetic and dramatically credible portrait of desperation and desire on the cider-splashed streets of adolescence.
09/11/09
The strength of the script and the direction throughout is surpassed by the skill of all the lead performers, and especially Jarvis, who elevates what would have been a good film to something very special indeed.
09/11/09
Jarvis is the discovery of the year, while Arnold has just stepped up into the same league as those masters of kitchen sink classics, Ken Loach and Alan Clarke.
09/11/09
A powerful, poignant and beautiful film, Arnold crafts Brit realism at its best
09/11/09
The film gains everything when it takes on the trappings of a thriller. As the teenager takes the fight to suburbia, there is a shocking sense of spatial transgression.
09/11/09
There are moments of athletic grace, as Mia dances in an abandoned flat to her Discman; and a closing image, of a floating heart balloon, which does little to dispel the sense of emotional agoraphobia which has spooled out over the previous two hours.
09/11/09
Fish Tank is full of surprises, twisting and turning like a teenage girl trying to escape the clutches of an unwanted suitor.
09/11/09
Dreary and unoriginal, like hundreds of its sub-Ken Loach predecessors, this is how Billy Elliott might have turned out had it been made by a collective of depressive Essex girls.
09/11/09
Fish Tank takes you to places you never expected and, with pitch-perfect performances all round, makes for a beguiling and very real picture that conjures hope amid the most hopeless of surroundings. The best British film of the year.
09/11/09
Great acting throughout the cast, raw energy and poignant imagery are surely what secured Fish Tank the jury prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
09/11/09
The kind of thriller that Ken Loach might make in collaboration with Michael Haneke, a slice of social-realist cinema in which we are never sure what – if anything – is about happen. It’s oppressively pessimistic but also utterly gripping.
09/11/09
Arnold controls this simmering tension as adroitly as she did in her first film: it's a real skill to present quite unpleasant characters and then reveal them as vulnerable, even loveable.
09/11/09
Fish Tank is a simple but incredibly, almost unbelievably, powerful film. No man or woman with warm blood in their body will come away from it feeling chirpy. On the plus side, it’s so reassuringly brilliant that you’ll feel proud to be British.
09/11/09
Fish Tank doesn't give you much to smile about. But the fact this country has the raw talent to produce a film like this is a reason to be cheerful.
09/11/09
Latest News for Fish Tank
January 14, 2010:
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This week at the movies, we've got Biblical bloodshed (The Book of Eli, starring Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman); neighborhood intrigue (The Spy Next Door, starring Jackie... More...
December 07, 2009:
Awards Tour: Fish Tank, Moon Win British Independent Film Awards 
Duncan Jones took home the Best Debut Director award and his film was named Best British Independent Film at the British Independent Film Awards in London last night. Fish Tank... More...
October 27, 2009:
Fish Tank Claims 8 BIFA Nominations
The 12th British Independent Film Award nominees were announced yesterday, recognising Fish Tank in 8 categories including Best Film and Best Director. Duncan Jones's sci-fi... More...
September 09, 2009:
Andrea Arnold talks Fish Tank - RT Interview
Having bagged an Oscar for her short film Wasp and a Cannes Jury Prize for her debut feature Red Road, Andrea Arnold concretes her status as one of Britain's hottest new... More...
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