Michael Fassbender's Best Performance Came In A Staggering Movie You Probably Haven't Seen

While Sean Baker has been exploring the experience of the American underclass for decades, British filmmaker Andrea Arnold has quietly been doing the same across the pond. Her best film, 2009's "Fish Tank," is easily one of the most important movies of the 21st century. Not only does it feature Michael Fassbender's greatest performance, it immerses us in its characters' lives so fully that it feels like a genuine out of body experience.

2026 saw Fassbender play an unconventional supporting role in Na Hong-jin's alien invasion epic "Hope," but as great as he's been in the many projects in which he's appeared over the last couple of decades, his best performance remains that of Connor O'Reily in "Fish Tank." Don't seek out this oft-overlooked drama solely for Fassbender, though.

There is no aspect of Arnold's coming-of-age drama that feels fabricated, forced, or confected, which ultimately amounts to a reminder of how incredible filmmaking is as an art form. We can never truly experience life from another individual's perspective, but no other medium gets as close to providing that experience in such a visceral and immediate a way as film. For being such a poignant reminder of that fact, and for transporting us so fully into the experience of its characters, "Fish Tank" remains a truly remarkable thing, and more important than ever at a time when a decidedly inauthentic AI garbage future looms.

Like Andrea Arnold's empathetic and moving 2016 masterpiece "American Honey," "Fish Tank" is a dark film that also somehow feels lyrical, elegiac, and tender. It follows Katie Jarvis' Mia Williams, a 15-year-old living on an East London council estate with her alcoholic mother Joanne (Kierston Wareing) and younger sister Tyler (Rebecca Griffiths). Mia is socially isolated, maladjusted, and confused. Amid the endless urban sprawl wrought by the wretched British Brutalism movement, Mia and her "family" (if you can call it that) feel like some sort of industrial age detritus — forgotten by society and adrift in a sea of concrete and social degradation. Yet, Mia is smart and harbors a secret love for dance, which she embraces in an abandoned flat.

Meanwhile, Mia's mother starts a relationship with charming Irishman Connor O'Reily (Michael Fassbender), who's warm and kind to Mia and Tyler. Over the course of two weeks, he becomes a father figure to the girls, calmly enduring their outbursts and helping them embrace their better qualities via countryside day trips and words of encouragement.

Every performance is flawless, every setting feels lived-in, and every single shot feels simultaneously raw and beautiful. That kind of juxtaposition is at the heart of "Fish Tank." Pink CRT TVs and palm tree wall-hangings adorn tower block walls, acting as emblems for the warmth and hopefulness inside characters who otherwise exist on the lowest tier of the class system. The film is also aware of another major juxtaposition: that becoming an adult is both a triumph and a tragedy. But in Mia's case, that ironic reality is heightened. She's been forced to grow up quickly, and we feel simultaneously proud and bitterly sorry for her. Once Connor reveals a darker side, our sympathy only grows.

"Fish Tank" could have been a great film merely for depicting its characters and setting in as convincing a way as it does and for being an empathetic exploration of the struggles faced by the British underclass. But the film goes a step further, delivering a gripping story to accompany its almost documentarian approach. Explaining more would spoil that story, but it's worth sticking with "Fish Tank" right to the end, even when it gets hard to watch (and, fair warning, things do get very hard to watch).

Star Katie Jarvis (who was rumored to be up for a "Star Wars" role back in 2014) had no acting experience prior to appearing in "Fish Tank." She was discovered by a casting assistant at a local train station. As such, there's a strong neorealist sensibility in Andrea Arnold's film, which also feels ahead of its time. "Fish Tank" is tactile in a similar way to Charlotte Wells' 2022 heartbreaker "Aftersun." It's full of texture, with cutaways painting detailed pictures of each environment and inspired sound design choices pulling you into scenes in a strikingly intimate way. As such, "Fish Tank" feels prescient — as if it was predicting the kind of ASMR-influenced aesthetics of the 2020s more than a decade before we all became obsessed with "vibes."

More than anything, "Fish Tank" is beautiful — not in a superficial sense, but in the sense that it feels true, honest, and deeply empathetic. It's not always pretty, but in taking what are very real experiences and presenting them as part of a beautifully-crafted film such as this, "Fish Tank" manages to be both devastating and sort of uplifting — like a song turning pain into poetry, or Mia sublimating disaffection into dance.