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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.
Genre: Foreign Films
US Box Office: $187,074
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
Unfolds as a conventional coming-of-age story, yet Andrea Arnold hasn’t altered her persuasively jaundiced view of men, who seem as pitifully helpless against their horndog urges as the women foolish enough to care for them.
Isn't that what we mostly go to the movies to see when we pay to see drama? Stories that touch our hearts and minds in a relatable way and in doing so achieve greatness? Fish Tank is a great movie.
Jarvis, whom the director reportedly discovered at an Essex train station, is nothing less than a revelation in a performance that is tender, spiky and utterly fearless in its physical and emotional range.
Top CriticA remarkable downer-upper paradox: a bruising tale of teenage resilience, honest and emotionally complicated and alive.
A step up from Step Up.
Arnold sees everything through Mia's eyes and never steps outside to explain things from any other point of view. She knows who the young girl is, and we are left to assume.
Top CriticIn the starring role, first-timer [Katie] Jarvis could not be improved upon. She's the ideal synthesis of adolescent desire and contempt.
Fish Tank could easily have turned into a maudlin and overly heart-wrenching tale, but it's gritty and tough instead, just like its heroine.
The brilliant power of the film comes from the gritty reality Arnold creates.
Top CriticAs it stands, Fish Tank is a valuable movie, though it aspires to a social insight it doesn't attain and a psychological penetration it won't maintain.
Jarvis' debut performance is a bracingly authentic revelation. She was discovered by filmmakers in a train station as she fought with her boyfriend, and brings just the right blend of feisty forcefulness and awkward tenderness to the part.
Top CriticWith a bare minimum of dialogue - none of which I can print - Arnold establishes Mia’s barren environment and the hope and fury that war beneath the surface of the girl’s skin.
No one escapes untainted, but thanks to Arnold's lucid, edgy, detached naturalistic style, no one watching can escape feeling both empathy and uneasiness.
This is disturbing stuff, [but] unexpectedly hopeful in its outlook.
Fish Tank is a coming-of-age story for Mia, who will at least have a shot at happiness, and a coming-into-mastery story for the writer-director, Ms. Arnold, whose prospects seem limitless.
Top CriticWith "Fish Tank," [Andrea Arnold]'s made her best film so far, and in the process, reinforced just how glad I am I didn't have any daughters.
Andrea Arnold's follow-up to her excellent debut feature Red Road is just as mysterious and powerful; it's like a lower-class version of An Education but far more effective.
A terrific debut performance by Katie Jarvis, solid support from her veteran co-stars, good production and direction and a well-crafted story make this a worthwhile, mature and engrossing film.
Katie Jarvis is achingly good. Fish Tank is unremittingly bleak, but somehow, allows room for hope.
An intense film about the messy coming-of-age misadventures of an angry and unhappy English working-class teenager.
January 14, 2010:
Critics Consensus: The Book of Eli Is a So-So Read
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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