Fish Tank

Like a cross between the foul-mouthed humanity of Ken Loach’s underclass slices-of-life and the fussed-over rednecksploitation of Harmony Korine, Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank stakes out a sliver of its own territory by focusing on female toughness and aggression. The performances are all first-rate, leading with young Katie Jarvis, who plays a hard-drinking 15-year-old troublemaker who dreams of being a street-style dancer, but in the meantime crushes on her mother’s boyfriend, played by the excellent Michael Fassbender of Hunger and Inglourious Basterds fame. Jarvis’ relentless pursuit of her passions, however dangerous they might be, keeps the intensity high, but it’s Fassbender’s enigmatic character that holds the most intrigue. At times, he seems almost fatherly in his treatment of Jarvis, but at others it’s a little harder to tell what lines he’s capable of crossing.

Updated 12/18/2009