CASE STUDY Fish Tank (2009)

Fish Tank 

This film is a social realism piece directed by Andrea Arnold. It is about a 15 year old girl called Mia who is antisocial lives with her single mum Joanne and sister Tyler. This film explores the themes of family, love and crime. The film was funded by BBC Film and the UK film council with the sum of £1.8 million. It had made £1.5 million back. 

The main characters of this film are Mia who is 15, anti-social, possibly aggressive and has mood swings. Connor is Mia’s Mum’s new boyfriend who has a sexual relationship with Mia at one point. He also has a wife in daughter in another town. Joanne who is Mia and Tyler’s mum she doesn’t care that much for her daughters and mostly for herself.  Billy who is a traveler who has an old horse and a car he’s currently fixing, he’s more understanding than his two other brothers. Finally there’s Tyler who is Mia’s younger sister who is quite like her but younger a difference between the two is that Tyler has friends while Mia doesn’t clearly apart from Billy. 

Symbolism is used frequently the main one being chains and animals. The chains shows that Mia feels stuck where she is that she can’t escape. Animals in this represent Mia as they are things of beauty and are able to go where ether they wish to. These can often be seen together for example in Mia’s room there is a butterfly what has chain over it. An example that animals represent animals is the horse of Billie’s what Mia tries to break free, this also show that Mia wants to break free but is always stopped in doing so. When she is told the horse was killed she’s told it was as old as her. It shows that she feels doomed as the horse was like her and that if the horses life came to an end so will hers. At the end of the film as Mia drives away with Billy to Wales there is a balloon what is flaying away showing that Mia is now free to go wherever she wants. 

The film's themes are family, love and crime. Family is the biggest theme as every important character has an actual family. There's Mia's what is dysfunctional and mostly hate each other. There's Conor's family what he had kept a secret what is him his wife and his daughter. Lastly there's Billy's family what is him and his two brothers. something these families all have in common apart form Mia is that they are in threes and there is three of them. This maybe be referencing that that Conor has three lovers those being his actual wife, Joanne and Mia and how they all love him. Love is also a key theme in this film. There are different types of love in this film there is the love that Mia has for here sister Tyler they may not make it clear however they do as they are both said to leave each other at the end. There is the love that Joanne and Mia have with each other, it's shown through Mia travelling a long way to ask why he had left her mum. If she hadn't cared for her then she wouldn't of travelled so far for her. This loved is mirrored as Joanne wants Mia to do something with her life as she's sending her to good school what is far away. There's the love between Mia and Connor, Joanne and Connor and Connor's wife and Connor, all of these are physical types of love. However as the film goes on they all change; Mia's turns to hatred between the two, Joanne's turns to one sided as only Joanne loves Connor and Connor's wife doesn't change. Another example of a love what changes throughout the film is the love between Billy and Mia. At the start of the film Mia despises him and his brothers as she feel that they are starving the horse however as the film progresses she turns to like him more and more, at the end it seems that Mia and Billy have started to love each other.  Crime is in the film allot in different forms mostly in underage drinking from Mia as she's only 15,  another crime she has committed due to her age is under aged sex with Connor. However another under aged crime is Tyler as in one scene she is seen smoking and though we don't know her exact age it's safe to assume that she's younger than Mia.