ANDREA ARNOLD DOES IT AGAIN

Fish Tank In 2005 Andrea Arnold, a British former actress and children’s television presenter, won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short. In 2007, she took home the Best Newcomer Bafta for her first feature film, “Red Road”. With this year’s Cannes Jury Prize in the bag for her second feature, her winning streak goes on.

“Fish Tank” is a tragicomic portrait starring Katie Jarvis (above), a magnetic first-timer, as Mia, a 15-year-old drop-out who rampages around her Essex council estate, swigging industrial-strength cider, and yelling insults at anyone who crosses her concrete path. She’s the kind of hoodie who would have certain columnists demanding the return of hanging, but Arnold treats Mia as a plucky heroine who, beneath her armour of swagger and aggression, just needs someone to pay her a little attention. Whether that someone is her mother’s beguiling new Irish boyfriend (Michael Fassbender, from “Hunger”) remains to be seen.

There are some British directors who can make uncompromising, intelligent dramas about working-class life at its toughest, and there are some who can make thrillers as entertaining and accessible as any Hollywood blockbuster. Arnold is one of very few who can do both at once.

Fish Tank British release September 11th

~ NICHOLAS BARBER

Picture Credit: Rex