Fish Tank

So, Fish Tank! Saw it with Em in Barcelona and forgot to mention, it is one of the best films I've ever ever seen, made me proud to be British. Andrea Arnold (writer and director) takes this small scale story and makes it into something huge, powerful, vast, epic. Basically it's about Mia, who lives on an Essex council estate with her mum and little sister, full of anger and longing and aggression, being gradually won over by her mum's new boyfriend.

I can't explain how powerful it is - it feels like verite, but more heightened and atmospheric - even the way she uses sound (something you tend not to notice in films) and light in the film, it's like she knows how to hotwire the emotional centres in your brain. This trailer makes it look a bit grim but it does have laughs too, especially from Mia's cocky little sister (to Mia's new boyfriend; "Are you a pikey?")

Bonus facts: Andrea Arnold used to be in a kid's show of my faraway childhood called Number 73. She used to zoom around on roller boots and was the coolest thing ever. She spotted the main actor in Fish Tank, Katie Jarvis, having a row with her boyfriend in a train station and cast her, though she'd never acted before.

You should see it. It's one of the few films I've seen recently that really is about something.

(I will stop posting soon. I've just been in the house for 5 straight days and am going a bit stir crazy.)