In The Tank

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In Contention's Guy Lodge has written that U.S. audiences are going to have "wait indefinitely" to see Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank. The reason, as I wrote in my Cannes review, is that it's "basically a female Billy Elliot with no hope, no shot, no Julie Walters to teach and encourage, no father willing to break his back in order to pay for his child's education at a London arts academy, no Marc Bolan singing 'I Love To Boogie'...none of that."

Fish Tank "is extremely well captured with a powerhouse performance by Jarvis, but it's all about the shit end of the stick.

"The story is about how Mia (Katie Jarvis) gets it in her head that her mom's new boyfriend, a handsome, good natured security guard named Connor (Michael Fassbender), may have a bit of what she needs. A friendly smile, a kindly attitude, a positive paternal-ish influence. And for a while he seems like a good thing, especially with his encouragements about Mia's dancing, which he says is 'great.' And then you know what happens. If you can't guess you need to think harder.

"The grimness in Fish Tank is, I think, vaguely similar to the mood and material in Tony Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner. Tom Courtenay played an angry resentful teen who winds up in a borstal for thievery, but his ace in the hole -- i.e., being a good long-distance runner -- is used to deliver a jolting dramatic turn at the finale, one that said something profound about nihilism among working-class youths of the early '60s.

"Fish Tank's story never even begins to build into anything remotely similar. It pretty much stays in the pit from start to finish."

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on August 9, 2009 at 2:09 PM

comment #1

Chase Kahn says ...

Yeah, it'll probably be dumped off early next year or early summer with a 40 screen run or something like that.

Posted by Chase Kahn at August 9, 2009 2:57 PM

comment #2

MilkMan says ...

Red Road started off good, then got silly, then ended on a ridiculously upbeat note. I'm going to pass on Arnold's next film. She's all hype.

Posted by MilkMan at August 9, 2009 3:55 PM

comment #3

kingofnails says ...

Her short film WASP is a stunner. Also, I love how she shoots this in 1.33.

Posted by kingofnails at August 9, 2009 4:07 PM

comment #4

erniesouchak says ...

Sorry, but the title alone is enough to kill it.

Posted by erniesouchak at August 9, 2009 8:30 PM

comment #5

Circumvrent says ...

Nothing says good drama than "it stays in the same pit from start to finish." And before anybody jumps down my throat, I'd say that Ramin Bahrani's Chop Shop which looks similar in tone and style, was able to move around in that pit, and become pretty transcendent in the end.

Posted by Circumvrent at August 9, 2009 9:22 PM

comment #6

BurmaShave says ...

So a raw British working-class drama without any of Daldry's nonsense that has shades of Tony Richardson's finest film? Sounds pretty good to me.

Posted by BurmaShave at August 9, 2009 9:38 PM

comment #7

lawnorder says ...

She's the real deal - a great director with a real filmmaking style. Red Road was solid and her short WASP was genius. I'll probably buy the region 2 Blu Ray as soon as it becomes available.

Posted by lawnorder at August 9, 2009 11:53 PM

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Her short film WASP is a stunner.

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Lemonade diet says ...

Her short film WASP is a stunner. Also, I love how she shoots this in 1.33.

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comment #10

Lemonade diet says ...

So a raw British working-class drama without any of Daldry's nonsense that has shades of Tony Richardson's finest film? Sounds pretty good to me.

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