Fish Tank

Fish Tank is a 2009 British drama following the life of 15 year old Mia and her relationship with her family especially her Mothers Boyfriend. The film is written and  directed by Andrea Arnold who has also directed the TV show Big Little Lies as well as Transparent. The film also stars Katie Jarvis as Mia and Michael Fassbender as her mums boyfriend Conor. 

It follows the life of a working class family near London and what is happening in their life and all this primarily revolves around Mia and what she is up to. 

The film is all shot and produced very traditionally and standard shots are in it ike close ups to show the characters expressions or establishing shots to show where we are like in a block of flats or what Mia is looking at, like a horse that is tied up. This film is a very naturalistic one, with little backing music and feeling quite gritty in its subject matter.

The performances in it are all very good as well as everyone's character feels very genuine and it makes the audience feel very much in their world. Katie Jarvis is very good as Mia and it is nice representation that is not ever really in films, having a teenage female lead from working class family and her character is very strong and has her flaws as well which makes her even more genuine. The film also is quite a female lead film, with a female director and the women in the films being the ones that drive the momentum of the film. Michael Fassbender is also in the cats and it is nice to see him in a small independent British film and this could also help widen the appeal of it as there is an A lister in it so an audience would be more likely to see it, and it is not the type of film that would probably appeal to a modern day audience as they would might want to see something that is more fantasy based and not that close to reality. 

The film also had some themes that aren't really in cinema like morden working class lifestyles ,male power and being who you want to be. The film would be very resonant with young people as they would be able to relate to Mia and even though she does make some bad decisions , we see her character change through out the film and hopefully positively. 

The critical response for this film was very good as it has a score of 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and it won the Cannes Jury Prize. It was shot on a budget of $3 million and and made $5.9 million at the box office. 

Overall this was a very interesting film and shows how a film can be very simple in its story and the way it is shot but can be very good especially when the actors are very good.