One Paragraph Movie Review: Fish Tank

One hundred and forty-eighth film: Fish Tank, a 2009 British film that is both great and awful to watch, which is the kind of movie I like and dislike, with the added element of forcing me to admire Michael Fassbender’s Irish, wiry hotness and then almost immediately making me feel icky about it. He plays the boyfriend of main character Mia’s mother, and almost every character except Mia’s mother elicits that uncomfortable you’re-a-horrible-person-but-I-hope-nothing-bad-happens-to-you viewer connection. It’s pretty skilful like that — just when you want to hug or have a beer with someone on-screen, they suddenly do something very bad, sliding you down a despair corkscrew in a tracksuit. Every relationship in this small family is flawed but understandable, which squirts out realism from every corner of the council flat that houses it. This thing makes you want to drink, and dance, and speak like a chav, and call child services. Very, very good. Very, very bad. Four and a half disappointing stripper auditions out of five.