Fish Tank

If "An Education" and "Precious" had an out-of-wedlock child the result would be "Fish Tank". This is a rough and tumble coming of age story set in the lower class projects outside of London. It has little to do with "An Education's" comfortable suburbia and unlike "Precious", the abuse in "Fish Tank" is really self-inflicted. But they each have everything to do with young women trying to find themselves during their sexual awakening and the struggle for identity in the face of overwhelming obstacles. In "Fish Tank" Mia, played by newcomer Katie Jarvis with unnerving authenticity, is a troubled teen in the projects outside of London who develops a crush on her shiftless mother's new boyfriend. He befriends her and disarms her anger, but what are his motives? He seems to be the only one who can break through her tough exterior. What ensues is a rash of bad teenage choices informed by bad parenting (same as "An Education" and "Precious", to one degree or another).
Not much happens in the first hour or so of this movie and the accents are thicker than treacle in December, which makes for a film that need some stick-to-itivenes. (really, they might as well be speaking Slovakian at times) but some plot twists toward the end and the cumulative effect of characterization makes it worth the ride.
One interesting note on the character of the boyfriend, played by Michael Fassbinder. Deflowering a fifteen-year-old would normally make your character one-sidedly evil especially in these days zero-tolerance pedophilia. Not so here. The director's approach to this character is soft, almost sympathetic, so that Mia shares the responsibility and blame in the bad decision-making. She is not entirely a victim here, unlike, say, a "Precious". The sex seems inevitable by circumstance and the fact that it was a bad experience almost a given. Age is not the point and the boyfriend seems less to blame than the world they live in. That is an unusual perspective and director Andrea Arnold deserves a lot of credit for that kind of bold choice. According to critics A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips, she's a director to watch. So I'll be watching.