Review by Luke Gorham: It's old news at this point, but Katie Jarvis, star of Andrea Arnold’s sophomore effort “Fish Tank,” was discovered on a train platform locked in a fierce argument with her boyfriend. The result of that chance encounter is yet another new talent from across the pond, as Jarvis delivers what’s sure to be one of the finest performances of the year in this coming of age, social realist drama. “Fish Tank” opens on Mia (Jarvis), a troubled youth both volatile in her actions and venomous with her words, picking a needless fight with a group of girls we're lead to believe used to be her friends. This immediately establishes Mia as a girl whose isolation is bubbling into forms of hostility. Living with her embittered, equally insecure mother (Kierston Wareing) has driven Mia to roam her urban neighborhood's streets by day and the only time we see her experience anything resembling happiness is in solitude, while practicing her dance moves. In these scenes, Jarvis lets us see the sensitivity and hope buried beneath Mia's street-tough exterior.

Mia’s mom begins dating all-around good guy Connor (Michael Fassbinder), and his presence seems to signify hope for Mia’s deteriorating family. She begins to open up, not just to Connor but to everyone in her life, adding another layer to a character who continues to endear us and play on our sympathies not in spite of her aggression and brokenness, but because of those qualities. Yet, just as Mia begins to blossom, gain confidence, and embrace the newfound stability in her life—and our compassion and hope for her reach new heights—Arnold changes gears and tones, introducing new themes that haunt us through to the film’s final, chilling third. The real story of “Fish Tank” since its debut last spring in Cannes has been the discovery of Jarvis, and rightly so. Turning in what is arguably the finest debut performance in many years, Jarvis shines as the girl who isn’t quite as hard as she thinks or as tough as she acts. Immediately erasing any skepticism regarding her age or lack of training, Jarvis plays Mia as a fierce but deeply wounded girl, effectively stripping away and reapplying layer after layer of increasingly unconvincing emotional stability and resoluteness. The physicality of Jarvis’s performance is likewise to be marveled at, particularly her dance sequences, which are performed with an entirely realistic mediocrity and reveal vulnerability in every self-conscious movement.

That isn’t to say Jarvis is the only player worthy of praise. Fassbinder is terrific as the stand-up guy whose consistent geniality never entirely veils his smarminess. He infuses Connor with a conflicted sincerity, rendering him a man whose seemingly genuine intentions belie a possibly sub-conscious need for redemption. Likewise, Arnold’s achievement is both understated and commanding as she manages to take the somewhat tired lower class British realism genre and instill it with just the right mixture of grittiness and melancholy to recall the best works of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh. Although she at times slips toward the heavy-handed (Mia’s preoccupation with freeing a captured horse) and the melodramatic (the final twenty minutes of the film), she has enough sense to only flirt with these potential pratfalls, wisely reining in most of her earnestness and letting the film rest upon Jarvis’s young but worthy shoulders. And while the title of “Fish Tank” aptly describes the frame of reference in which we view its heroine, the surprising ending suggests that, for Mia, as one of the lucky ones, the tank may not have to be her final destination after all.

Last Word: Featuring one of the best debut performances in recent memory by newcomer Katie Jarvis, “Fish Tank” is an emotional gut-punch of social realism, subtle characterization, and unexpected optimism set against the bleak, urban landscape of lower-class England.

Review By:
Luke Gorham

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