From only seeing the first half an hour of this film it does come across that Connor takes on the fatherly role within Mia's family. This is shown by his kindness and playfulness towards Mia's little sister Tyler in the first scene we see them in together as he is trying to get out of the house but still has time to play with Tyler and give her some money to pass through the doorway while Mia was watching the whole situation. The next fatherly act Connor does is when Mia is 'asleep' on her mother's bed after the house party and Connor gently moves her to her own room and puts her to bed. Their trip to the river shows a fatherly relationship between Mia and Connor as he helps her catch a fish, then tries to help her with the cut on her ankle and gives her a piggy back to the car. The could be seen as Mia seeing Connor as a father figure as she actually listens to him and is relatively pleasant towards him whereas she is violent, verbally and physically, other close around her.
However, I think that there is more than just a feeling of having a father figure for Mia and I believe that through the duration of the film she will go past the relationship of 'father daughter' and she will see him in a more romantic light, which could cause further problems between her and her mother.
2) What does the film make you think about the current state of British families?
This film has a very negative view towards family as there are signs of, physical, abuse towards Mia from her mother while Mia is abusive and violent towards others (the girls dancing-headbutted one of them) and her sister but that verbal confrontation is reciprocated by her sister. Mia lives in a broken home with no father present and her mother having alot of male 'friends' around is not a great environment for a teenage girl let alone her younger sister to be in with the inconsistency at home.
If I was watching this from another country then I might believe that all British families are like Mia's and I could base futher opinions of Britain by what I have seen in this film and my opinion would be affected by the violence, broken homes and the abuse shown in this film.
3) Now you have seen the film, have your opinions of the characters changed?
Even though I have only watched 30 minutes of this film I think that Mia's behaviour is not just down to being violent for the sake of it, I still believe that her mother plays a huge role in the way Mia has turned out as now I have witnessed the kind of family environment Mia was bought up in.
My opinion of her mother has changed in the sense that she is a worse role model than I thought she was, she appears to not care for her two girls and is more concerned with her love life and party scenes.
I believe that Tyler will go the way Mia has with her life if no intervention was given to her. She acts like a miniature version of Mia and has pretty much no positive relationship with her mother either.
Article from 'Sight & Sound' - The international film magazine
This article is an interview with Andrea Arnold (director of Fish Tank) and it shows her opinion of her work ad her ideas of the film storyline.
- Whereas I have inferred that Mia is disruptive (-does not go to school) Andrea says that she skips school to the empty flat to escape to an alternative world - hopefully dancing will be her way out. "she swims fustrated circles, like a shark in a tank"
- The run down estate that Mia lives on was not to highlight her violent tendences but it was set there because Andrea likes estates - "They're full of people, they're full of life.'- She wanted to tell her story in a real life situation.
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