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| Michael Fassbender | Connor |
| Rebecca Griffiths | Tyler |
| Katie Jarvis | Mia |
| Sydney Mary Nash | Keira |
| Harry Treadaway | Billy |
| Kierston Wareing | Joanne |
| Andrea Arnold | Director, Screenwriter |
| Nicolas Chaudeurge | Editor |
| Liz Gallacher | Musical Direction/Supervision |
| Kees Kasander | Producer |
| Marese Langan | Makeup |
| Christine Langan | Executive Producer |
| Nick Laws | Producer |
| Rashad Omar | Sound/Sound Designer |
| Jane Petrie | Costumes/Costume Designer |
| Robbie Ryan | Cinematographer |
| Helen Scott | Production Designer |
| David M. Thompson | Executive Producer |
| Jill Trevellick | Casting |
| Paul Trijbits | Executive Producer |
Anonymous
Posted October 14, 2011
Life as a 15-year-old girl can get pretty sour especially when you live in the projects with a wayward mother and bratty little sister. Mia is a fatherless girl with no direction being raised by an equally lost and confused single parent. Their council flat (British term for housing projects) in Essex is in a bleak dreary corner of the world where no future is obvious. Mia has pervasive loneliness that is endemic in a life of a school drop out with no friends and prone to fights with other teenagers. With no job, no friends, no stability it is no wonder that Mia is seeking a way out. She thinks dancing might be it but without any encouragement she is left to her own devices to make that dream come true.
The same old same old routine of Mia's existence continues compounded with underage drinking and more fights. One morning she is dancing in the kitchen of her flat preparing for an audition as a dancer at a local club. While Mia does her best hip hop move to the TV she is interrupted by a stranger in the kitchen. Her mother has brought home a new boyfriend, Connor, who responds by not mocking her. One gets the sense that this may be the first time that anyone has not ridiculed Mia for who she is and what she does. Things start to brew between Mia and Connor when he moves into the flat. For the first time in her life an anxious and tense girl with with a need for protection and safety only a father can provide is lured into an assault situation. The council flat is prime breeding ground for manipulation, coercion, and what psychologists call "love bombing". Show a person starved for love an unending stream of affection and you are their puppet master.
Fish Tank is not the first film to depict the uneasy and often creepy love triangle that can form when a parent brings home a new partner. Yet the film does not go to a formula or stereotype of either a secret assault against someone's will or duplicity committed on the part of a teenager or young adult. Rather, Fish Tank remains an unspoken story about what happens when a fatherless love starved girl enters puberty and seeks a paternal bond. Mia is already dealing with an out-of-control neglectful parent so the instant Connor displays patience, encouragement, and most of all . care . Mia is sucked in to a vortex of mixed affection and crossed boundaries.
Connor initially related to Mia as a kid he likes but a 15 year old girl is developing into a woman and being a man in his late 20's/early 30's the fact is not lost on Connor. The family outing at the lake starts the tumble down the road of forbidden attraction. Connor encourages Mia out of her shell and when she hurts her foot he tends to her immediately while her mother could care less. Then he carries her on his back because she can't walk.
These acts of kindness are all the things that a father does except Connor is not Mia's father because if she were a few years older she could be his lover instead of her mother. One can see how the transition to a bond between them is dangerous because of Mia's love starved existence that makes her especially susceptible to falling under the spell of anyone who would show her attention. There is both a mixture of impending danger and sweetness when Connor carries Mia to her room after she falls asleep on the couch one night.
Anonymous
Posted July 16, 2011
No text was provided for this review.
Anonymous
Posted October 7, 2011
No text was provided for this review.
Anonymous
Posted November 11, 2012
No text was provided for this review.
Overview