Fish Tank Review

The film Fish Tank was released on the September11^th2009. It was directed by Andrea Arnold. Over the past years Andrea Arnold has directed 6 films so far. For example in 2005 she directed a film called wasp, which she got an academic award for best live short action film. Then in 2006 she was the director of another film called Red Road which got a Jury Prize at Cannes. Then she was the director of another film called Fish Tank which was a low budget British film, which got three awards, one for being an outstanding British film, one for being a best independent British film director, and finally one Jury Prize at Cannes. The last film which was directed by her is Wuthering Heights.

The main people who were casting in the film Fish Tank are:  Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbender and Kierston Wareing. The main character in the film, Mia (Katie Jarvis) is not an actress or anything, she was found at a train station fighting with her boyfriend. That is where Andrea Arnold saw her and said she is the right one to do this play. Michael Fassbender is a famous actor; he started this career in 2007 when his first film was released called 300 and Angel. In Fish Tank at the beginning he has a role of a boyfriend and then later on he has to play a role for a father and husband. Kierston Wareing has also played roles in many films and in Fish Tank she is the mother of two daughters living with her boyfriend.   Fish Tank was a low budget British film, which means it was shot in a local area because of the budget. What I mean by low budget is that the producer of the film did not invest loads and loads of money in the film. If a film has a low budget, it cannot be as professional as a high budget film, because high budget films have loads of money which they could invest in the film and make everything perfect to make it a super hit film.

The film is rated 15, this is due to the amount of swearing in the film and some inappropriate scenes. From my personal point of view I don’t think this film should be rated 15, it should be rated 18 because there is too much swearing in the film. The BBFC British board of film classification says if a film is rated 15, there can be swearing but to a limit, which means you could use swear words but you cannot repeat it over and over again, which in Fish tank this has been done. The same swear word is used over and over again, which would be inappropriate for 15 years old.  

The genre of the film is drama. The main message what Andrea Arnold is trying to get to us is that how it would feel living in a condition like that. The story is about a girl called Mia (Katie Jarvis) who is 15 years old and she is hated by the people she is living with her mum and sister. The only person who doesn’t hate her is her mum’s boyfriend, who currently lives with them in the same house. The Mia does not go school, one day she is in the cyber-cafe and she looks at a poster which is about dancing and she thinks she should go to it. So she shows a video to them and she gets elected for an audition.  Before she goes to the audition she has to practise a lot, which she does every day because she don’t go to school. Her mum and sister really do not care if she is elected for the dancing auditions, but the only person who gives her attention is her mums Boyfriend. While she is practicing he supports her all sorts, but then they fall for each other and they have sex. The boyfriend the next morning runs away back to his house where his daughter and wife live. Then Mia makes it to his house one day and finds out all the truth from the scoters and girly toys in the house, she feels very used and angry, so she tries to take the guys daughter away. Michael finds her when she goes back to drop the daughter away and he catches her till she stops. Bang! He gives her a slap and walks away. Then the next morning Mia decides that she is going to move to Wales with her boyfriend.. While she is packing and getting all her stuff together her mum is dancing in the living room and that’s when she goes an joins her, followed by her sister. That’s the main plot of the film.