Fish Tank
Director: Andrea Arnold
Year Released: 2009
Rating: 2.5
Suitable - if slightly flat - entry in the 'tough English teen growing up on the wrong side of the town' genre at least has the consideration to replace the usual angry young man with an angry young woman (the saucy Katie Jarvis) who gets a quick 'education' from a deceptively 'upstanding' man (Michael Fassbender) dating her mother. Jarvis manages to stay strangely likeable as the jaded heroine who fights and spits and stomps around town with her baggy sweats - she identifies with American rap and hip-hop - and when she thinks she finds someone to love and realizes it's an illusion, it jars her. The third act is a serious letdown and when our heroine decides to flee to Wales, it seems like yet another bad decision.
