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movie review - Fish Tank

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

This is a film set in a low-income urban neighborhood somewhere in the UK. A teenage girl is struggling after having split with her best friend. Her alcoholic mother and neglected little sister serve as little more than sparring partners. Then a relationship begins to form between the girl and the mother's boyfriend. Between attempts at starting a break-dancing career and their retched poverty, the girl finds time to fight with others her own age and becomes interested a boy from a nomadic family camped in a nearby space. They've got a horse and the girl initially attempts to free it.

Incredibly gritting and relentless difficult, the girl's struggle is awesome and really puts things in perspective. The hand some people are dealt!

Recommended. Just don't expect that this is an evening's distraction from your woes.