It's an incongruous sight, a white horse situated in a vacant lot, surrounded by the blight of urban decay; a white horse in Essex, and Mia(Kate Jarvis) at 15, a well-seasoned 15, wizened up from poverty, a broken family, and an unpromising future, tries to liberate the horse from the shambles of his shackled life, because she knows how the palomilla feels. They're kindred spirits those two, the girl and horse, both victims of circumstance: no sugarcubes for him, no sweetness in her life either. The horse, one year her senior, despite aging differently from his human counterpart, is definitely Mia's contemporary, in the sense that the girl's chronological age matters less than her emotional age, where fifteen, accelerated by the mean streets of inner-city England, can be measured in animal years.
"I'm not a bloody kid, you know!" Mia tells Connor(Michael Rappaport), her mother's new beau, who responds, "I know," when she shows up unexpectedly at his workplace. It's the film's turning point, a declaration that unsnarls the ambiguity behind Connor's previous interactions with Mia, which could be interpreted as either fatherly, or the overtures of a sexual predator. He touches both Mia, and her younger sister, but what kind of touch is it? With Tyler(Rebecca Griffiths), Connor engages the foul-mouthed lass(she says "c**t" with more authenticity than Chloe Grace Moretz in Matthew Vaughn's "Kick-Ass") in seemingly harmless horseplay, tickling the girl at their front door when she doesn't fork over "money for the gatekeeper". "Fish Tank" firmly establishes Connor as a "good guy"(one suspects, atypical from the girls' mother's other boyfriends), a father figure, a bedrock of surrogate parenting, so he gets the benefit of the doubt in his encounters with Mia that could be ascribed as sexual, if the moviegoer penciled the man as a pervert from the outset.
After a party, having fallen asleep in the wrong bed, with her drunken mother's consent, Connor carries Mia in his arms to her own bed, where he proceeds to take off the girl's shoes, and then pants, while she feigns sleep without protest, alarming the moviegoer with the possible sexual connotations made by the undressing, before we're rest assured by the man's corrective measure of covering up the girl's underwear and exposed legs with a blanket. The next day, during a "family" outing at a secret fishing spot overgrown with greenery, Connor has Mia jump on his back under the pretense of a cut foot. Prior to the minor scrape, both man and girl look like father and daughter as they conspire to catch a fish in the pond, while the mother Joanne(Kierston Wareing) and Tyler watch from the edge. The next time they meet, the moviegoer is less sure about Connor's intentions, as he cleans and bandages her untreated cut, with a temperament pitched uneasily between paternal and incestuous. Mia smiles for the first time. No doubt about it: he's flirting with her.
Mia, an aspiring dancer in the hip-hop mode, spots a flier posted outside an Internet cafe which advertises the need for female dancers, as "Fish Tank" makes allusions to Hollywood's recent slate of dance-oriented movies such as "You Got Served" and "Step Up", a shrewd move on the film's part because it puts Connor to the test, since the moviegoer suspects that the dancing is exotic. Instead of a warning, he equips Mia with his video camera so she can create a demonstration tape for the promoters. Shirtless and stinking of cologne, as Connor gives the camera to Mia, he suddenly pulls the girl over his lap and spanks her, perhaps out of sexual excitement over seeing her strip should the girl be in a sharing mood. Slowly, but surely, Connor's intentions to sleep with her becomes more pronounced, outweighing his self-deluded affectations of mentoring and nurturing her, especially when he makes eye-contact with Mia as he f*** her mother from behind a half-open door. What happens next is inevitable.
Disillusioned and defeated, Mia returns to her equine friend. He's dead, prompting the girl to leave Essex with his owner, because in another year in the "fish tank" might kill her too. From the backseat of a moving car, she's a fish out of water while waving goodbye to Tyler.
"I'm not a bloody kid, you know!" Mia tells Connor(Michael Rappaport), her mother's new beau, who responds, "I know," when she shows up unexpectedly at his workplace. It's the film's turning point, a declaration that unsnarls the ambiguity behind Connor's previous interactions with Mia, which could be interpreted as either fatherly, or the overtures of a sexual predator. He touches both Mia, and her younger sister, but what kind of touch is it? With Tyler(Rebecca Griffiths), Connor engages the foul-mouthed lass(she says "c**t" with more authenticity than Chloe Grace Moretz in Matthew Vaughn's "Kick-Ass") in seemingly harmless horseplay, tickling the girl at their front door when she doesn't fork over "money for the gatekeeper". "Fish Tank" firmly establishes Connor as a "good guy"(one suspects, atypical from the girls' mother's other boyfriends), a father figure, a bedrock of surrogate parenting, so he gets the benefit of the doubt in his encounters with Mia that could be ascribed as sexual, if the moviegoer penciled the man as a pervert from the outset.
After a party, having fallen asleep in the wrong bed, with her drunken mother's consent, Connor carries Mia in his arms to her own bed, where he proceeds to take off the girl's shoes, and then pants, while she feigns sleep without protest, alarming the moviegoer with the possible sexual connotations made by the undressing, before we're rest assured by the man's corrective measure of covering up the girl's underwear and exposed legs with a blanket. The next day, during a "family" outing at a secret fishing spot overgrown with greenery, Connor has Mia jump on his back under the pretense of a cut foot. Prior to the minor scrape, both man and girl look like father and daughter as they conspire to catch a fish in the pond, while the mother Joanne(Kierston Wareing) and Tyler watch from the edge. The next time they meet, the moviegoer is less sure about Connor's intentions, as he cleans and bandages her untreated cut, with a temperament pitched uneasily between paternal and incestuous. Mia smiles for the first time. No doubt about it: he's flirting with her.
Mia, an aspiring dancer in the hip-hop mode, spots a flier posted outside an Internet cafe which advertises the need for female dancers, as "Fish Tank" makes allusions to Hollywood's recent slate of dance-oriented movies such as "You Got Served" and "Step Up", a shrewd move on the film's part because it puts Connor to the test, since the moviegoer suspects that the dancing is exotic. Instead of a warning, he equips Mia with his video camera so she can create a demonstration tape for the promoters. Shirtless and stinking of cologne, as Connor gives the camera to Mia, he suddenly pulls the girl over his lap and spanks her, perhaps out of sexual excitement over seeing her strip should the girl be in a sharing mood. Slowly, but surely, Connor's intentions to sleep with her becomes more pronounced, outweighing his self-deluded affectations of mentoring and nurturing her, especially when he makes eye-contact with Mia as he f*** her mother from behind a half-open door. What happens next is inevitable.
Disillusioned and defeated, Mia returns to her equine friend. He's dead, prompting the girl to leave Essex with his owner, because in another year in the "fish tank" might kill her too. From the backseat of a moving car, she's a fish out of water while waving goodbye to Tyler.