There’s a lot riding on the shoulders of first-time actor Katie Jarvis in Fish Tank, the latest film by British director Andrea Arnold. Her performance makes or breaks the movie. Jarvis plays Mia, an adolescent girl who lives a tough, impoverished life in a charmless apartment block on the outskirts of London and falls for her mother’s boyfriend Connor (Michael Fassbender – Inglorious Bastards, Band of Brothers). It is remarkable that Arnold trusted the role of Mia to Jarvis, an absolute unknown, a girl who was spotted arguing with her boyfriend by a casting director on a train platform. And yet Jarvis’ inexperience is Fish Tank’s secret ingredient. The film is one of those realist efforts (think the Dardenne brothers) whose power comes from a rawness of action and immediacy of its characters. Jarvis doesn’t so much act in the movie as play herself. The result is a story that is honest and deeply felt – an adolescent on screen who isn’t exaggerated, romanticized, characterized, or underserved.
Mia lives with her mother and ten-year-old sister in grim circumstances. Her mother parties, philanders, and neglects. Her sister smokes, drinks, and swears. Mia is adolescent id. Her moods swing wildly. She lashes out and attacks, is cut-off, withdrawn, and temperamental. She wanders the streets, picks fights, and finds solace by stealing off to an empty apartment where she dances, imitating the moves she learns from hip-hop videos on television.
Into this mix enters Connor, Mia’s mother’s new boyfriend. Mia first encounters Connor when he is standing in the kitchen of their apartment shirtless. The film becomes charged from there on out with sexual tension that builds between the hunky Connor and the 15-year old. She falls for him like a typical teenager: shy and flirty, possessive and suggestive. Connor indulges her. All he needs to do is pay attention to the outcast Mia, and she is smitten.
Fish Tank’s allure is Mia’s heart. It is on fire – even before she meets Connor – and the unfolding of their relationship is just a foil for its eruption. Arnold achieves a deep physical and psychological intimacy with her camera. Its eye explores and lingers, allowing Jarvis to simmer and boil. Arnold is telling the story of an illicit a romance, but it becomes a meditation, a series of moments that capture the forging of spirit in the gauntlet of adolescence. Her achievement is being able to get something this honest to work on screen.
