FISH TANK: not so happy in the projects

FISH TANK is the story of Mia, a foul mouthed, tough 15 year old girl who lives in the projects in Essex with her drunk mother and equally fouled mouth little sister. Mia has no friends, and loves to dance. She spends her days trying to get booze and waiting to get sent off to some sort of correctional boarding school. Then her mother begins dating Connor, a friendly good looking Irish man, who plants himself into the family and gives all three females the sort of dependable male attention they have never known. He is able to bring out a nicer side of Mia, who still jumps back to her angry self and often snipes that she can't stand him, despite it being clear she is crazy about him. Unfortunatly things take a steer to the innappropriat and Connor ends up having sex with Mia on her sofa while her mother is passed out drunk and her sister spies on them. The morning after Connor breaks up with Mia's mother and leaves. Mia tracks him down, discovering secrets he was keeping and ends up creating a situation that turns more serious then she could forsee.
FISH TANK is a solid movie, directed by Andrea Arnold, who also directed RED ROAD and whose third film WUTHERING HEIGHTS is in production now.  She is a director to watch for.  The performances in FISH TANK  are seamless, seeming like you are watching people who really live the lives you are watching. First time actress Katie Jarvis was found in the projects arguing with her boyfriend and offered the role, and she is phenomanel. She captures Mia'a crippling loneliness masked in  anger and makes you root for her despite her foul nature. Also brilliant is Michael Fassbender, who is my current male actor obsession, as Connor. It can't be easy to play a man who befriends and then sleeps with a young girl desperate for companionship, but Fassbender manages to give Connor enough layers to keep from being a straight up creep. In no way am I saying the movie makes him sympathetic, but he makes Connor interesting.
In FISH TANK, Mia's only passion is for dance. She escapes to an empty apartment to play rap music on her tape player and dance, a sort of street style, more male in style then feminine. The scenes of her dancing are good, and the music even better. In fact, this movie has great music. From the rap to the reggae that her mother always has on, to Bobby Womack, whom Connor plays for Mia and that she later dances to for him.
The movie has very few scenes of happiness, the world these characters live in is harsh, the people are mean and the scenery is stark. In the first few minutes Mia breaks a girls nose and barley escapes being raped by a couple of teenage boys. Still, I think the movie is about Mia's humanity and how it survives despite how angry she is and how hurt by others she is. Her need to save a white horse, kept tied up in a junkyard, shows she has compassion, even if she often hides it from people. At the end of the movie, as Mia heads out into the world, she looks back, watching her little sister, and smiles. Her future is not promising, but she is resigned to escaping the projects, the trap of poverty, if she can. Weather or not she will be able to succeed in the world is unsure, but at 15 she has more strength then most of the adults in her world.