Fish Tank
IFC Films | Release Date: January 15, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
81
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Arnold deserves comparison with a British master director like Ken Loach. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
The only person who seems to understand the angry teen is mom's new boyfriend (Michael Fassbender of Hunger), though their friendship oscillates between intimate and vaguely creepy. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The amazingly natural first-timer was discovered, in a gift of publicity-ready truth, while having an argument with her boyfriend at a train station. Read full review
90
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Arnold's first feature, "Red Road" (2006), centers on another outsider, a woman who monitors security cameras. The film is formally brilliant, but it doesn't have the breathtaking openness of Fish Tank. Read full review
90
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Absolute dynamite. Read full review
90
VarietyLeslie Felperin
What makes the picture feel special is its unflinching honesty and lack of sentimentality or moralizing, along with assured direction and excellent performances. Read full review
90
NPRIan Buckwalter
Andrea Arnold has crafted a scene that approaches a literal embodiment of the term "kitchen-sink drama" here is most likely coincidence; nevertheless, her film is a bold new entry in that long-standing British tradition of disquieting social realism. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
The contradictions of adolescence have rarely been conveyed with such authenticity and force. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
It's been a good while since I've seen a movie whose most powerful sequence was both unforeseen and entirely unpredictable as it played out. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
The 17-year-old so completely captures the innocence, cynicism and rage of a child of poverty and divorce on the edge of adulthood that it feels as if you are spying on Mia, so achingly real, so tangible does her world seem here. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
Fish Tank isn't an easy watch – it's like two hours of ache – but there are rich rewards to be had in the many ways Arnold and her terrific team rend us to and fro. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
While you're remembering new high-impact names, add Arnold. In only her second film, after 2006's "Red Road," she keeps the screen filled to bursting with the beauty and raw terror of life. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia Puig
A brilliantly acted and achingly bleak coming-of-age story. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
A remarkable downer-upper paradox: a bruising tale of teenage resilience, honest and emotionally complicated and alive. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
It's not comfortable but it is engrossing. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
It's oppressive and claustrophobic, confused and scary in there. But it's also compellingly real. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
In many ways Fish Tank joins "An Education" and "Precious" as an acute, empathic portrait of a girl growing up, but more than those films Arnold leaves viewers with a feeling of unsettled ambiguity. Read full review
80
EmpirePhilip Wilding
A vivid portrayal of life at society's margins with a compelling turn from newcomer Jarvis. Little wonder it scored at Cannes. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
The film belongs to Jarvis, however, and she makes the most of it with expressive features that convey Mia's mixed-up emotions from raging temper to sweet vulnerability. She will go far. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Fish tank may begin as a patch of lower-class chaos, but it turns into a commanding, emotionally satisfying movie, comparable to such youth-in-trouble classics as "The 400 Blows." [18 Jan. 2010, p. 83]
80
SlateDana Stevens
Fish Tank manages to be about exploitation without being exploitative. For my money--and without opening up the "Precious" debate again--it's by far the better movie. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Arnold generally steers clear of cinematic melodrama, and Jarvis infuses the entire film with the sort of kinetic spirit that heralds a new talent. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
Fish Tank is grim, to be sure, but it leaves us with a feeling of hopefulness. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Fish Tank should be seen for what it does well and for what it hints may come, if Andrea Arnold and her audiences are lucky. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
A half-century ago, "kitchen sink realism" began its harsh existence on the British stage and then migrated to the screen where, over the years, the genre has taken up permanent residence, maturing into a gritty art...Now add Andrea Arnold to the directors' list and Fish Tank to the kitchen. It's classic low-rent realism – you can almost smell the grease on the unwashed dishes. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
Fortunately, Fish Tank feeds us more than crumbs and leaves us feeling like we've come up for air. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
In that way, Jarvis is a lot like Arnold: an artist who knows the steps, but doesn't yet have all the moves. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Like "Red Road" it's slow-moving and sometimes grueling, but it's more of a chronicle than narrative, a series of slices-of-life rather than an unfolding and increasingly engrossing enigma. Read full review
50
Village VoiceElla Taylor
Jarvis gives a ferociously persuasive performance in an otherwise routine tale of domestic disaster. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Even as it stands, Fish Tank is a valuable movie, though it aspires to a social insight it doesn't attain and a psychological penetration it won't maintain. Read full review
40
Time OutKeith Uhlich
A grimy kitchen-sink melodrama with an Ajax cleanser script: The muck is all surface, the turmoil cleanly shallow and contrived, though never less than gripping. Read full review
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