For all the praise and awards lavished upon Red Road, it remains a good first hour in search of a satisfying ending.

No such worries with Andrea Arnold's follow-up feature, a raw, compassionate, and no-frills coming-of-age movie up there with Welcome To The Dollhouse and Kes, only with more underage drinking, smoking, and swearing.

Shot near the A13 on a rough 'n' ready Essex council estate, the film buzzes with anger: Mia's neglectful, resentful young mum (Wareing) never failing to remind her daughter what a screw-up she is, kid sister Tyler (Griffiths) on the same road to school expulsion and antisocial behaviour, and the only consistent male presence in the house being a pug-nosed dog, Tennents.

Channelling this rage is Jarvis, carrying the entire film on her first-time shoulders after Arnold spotted her on a train platform rowing with her boyfriend.  Combative, hurting, and mournful, Jarvis' Mia is a wounded animal, finding an understanding spirit in Fassbender's Connor, who initiates her sexual awakening.

Bewitched by the handsome, roguish Irishman, she drops her guard when he comes visiting.  When he seems just as curious about her, Arnold plays the friendship for all the unease, excitement, and suspense it's worth, commendably avoiding missteps into histrionics and reining in a climax that could have tipped into out-of-place tragedy.

Moving with the unpredictability of a hormonal teen, Fish Tank was shot in sequence, the script revealed piecemeal to the actors, so Mia turns on Connor as much as she turns to him, and Jarvis' surprise at the twists and turns of the story ring authentic.  

Laced with colourful language, none more shocking than the confrontational abuse that tumbles out of little sis' mouth, plus underage drinking and sex, the BBFC are to be commended for awarding the film a 15 cert, allowing its target audience access to a bold, emotional, home-grown winner.

Lit in drab greys and harsh streetlamp oranges, Fish Tank is not pretty to look at, and you wouldn't want to live next to this dysfunctional lot.  But at its heart is a streak of humanity, closing on a note of melancholy hope, courtesy of a “pikey” lad Mia befriends (The Disappeared’s Treadaway).

Jarvis is the discovery of the year, while Arnold has just stepped up into the same league as those masters of kitchen sink classics, Ken Loach and Alan Clarke.

Rob Daniel