-Written by Michelle Vorob.
2024 HOLLYSHORTS FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW!
Fishtank is a short film by Wendi Tang that explores themes of addiction and codependency, with a unique twist. Jules (Tiffany Chu) is a 30ish year old alcoholic woman, navigating the dating world. The film opens with Jules sick in a bar bathroom, after her date was too forward, which put her off. Her “secret” is that when she vomits, she vomits out a small fish. A live, flopping fish, which she then scoops up and puts into a water bottle and takes home.
Jules arrives home to an apartment absolutely filled with fishtanks full of many varieties of fish. It was quite beautiful, except for the fact that we know she vomited all of them out. While I imagine the lesson is that owning your faults, mistakes, and past trauma can be beautiful, I found the premise of vomiting out a live fish each time she was upset to be completely ridiculous.
Jules goes to her regular AA meeting and a random guy in the parking lot yells at her for parking badly. She gets upset and you guessed it, vomits out a fish. Yeah. She goes into the meeting and when it's her turn to share, she tells everyone she vomits fish now that she's sober. Everyone thinks she's joking, except for a handsome stranger, Matt (Isaac Jay). He believes her because he's a marine biologist. That doesn't even make sense.
They go to her apartment and he tells her how valuable some of her fish are. He isn't at all upset that she vomited all of them into existence. They have sparks. He asks her if he can kiss her, and things forward to a month later. They're a couple and he comments she's going to be late for work and that she hasn't vomited a fish for a month and is getting better. She then spontaneously vomits a fish at work, while in the middle of ringing up a customer [we see she's a cashier at this point].
She goes home and her apartment almost looks robbed, as all the fishtanks have been emptied. Devastated, Jules slumps to the ground. Matt walks in, taken by surprise that Jules has come home earlier than expected. He took the fish and sold them, supposedly for her. His persona is different now; desperate, trying to control her. Was he just using her for her “valuable fish”? Damn those opportunistic marine biologists. She gets upset and all the fishtanks explode. She runs out to her car. Matt follows. Now in the car, she vomits out a fish. Distracted, she hits Matt. He's dead. She takes his ear as a souvenir. Um, what?
The next we see Jules, it's morning. She's in her kitchen. It's bright and calm. She's at peace. She leaves and the camera pans to a small glass on the table, which contains Matt's ear.
I would have loved Fishtank if it weren't for the ridiculous vomiting of live fish and then cutting off the guy's ear. Will she vomit ears now? Will she now murder every guy that does her wrong? At least the fishtanks were pretty.
Written & Directed by Wendi Tang.
Starring Tiffany Chu, Isaac Jay, John Charles Martin, Americus Abesamis, Cindy Michelle, Julyza Commodore, Seong Park, etc.
7/10 = WATCH IT FOR FREE
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