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It’s only her second feature film, but with Fish Tank, the British director Andrea Arnold demonstrates that she more than deserves her place in a Cannes competition lineup that includes work from some of the most celebrated directors currently working. And it’s fitting that her picture screens alongside the latest from Ken Loach – there is an obvious debt here to his brand of compassionate naturalism.

Arnold builds on the humanistic, low key intimacy of her feature debut, Red Road, which won the Jury prize at Cannes in 2006. And again she takes us under the skin of a complex, conflicted female protagonist. But thematically, this portrait of marginalised lives and loves is closer to Arnold’s Oscar-winning short film Wasp.

Fifteen-year-old Mia ricochets around her Dartford council estate with fists clenched and a fight brewing for anyone who happens to cross her path. It’s a tremendous performance from newcomer Katie Jarvis. Mia subsists on cut-price cider and rage. She punches through her frustrations with solitary, awkward bouts of street dance. She’s an attack dog who snaps at social niceties; a girl who has grown and is starting to bloom into a young woman, all without the balm of tenderness and affection from anyone around her. Her loveless mother (played by Kierston Wareing) parents her with pinches, shoves and caustic scorn. Her relationship with her younger sister is so dysfunctional that “I hate you!” is an expression of affection.

It is the occasional glimpse of vulnerability beneath the veneer of cheap gold jewellery and attitude that elevates Jarvis’ performance. This emotionally stunted teenager is, briefly, a child again as she strokes a scrawny mare tethered in a travellers’ camp by a motorway overpass. And you can practically hear her hormones revving up when she first meets her mother’s new boyfriend, Irish charmer Connor (Michael Fassbender, returning to Croisette after last year’s blistering performance in Steve McQueen’s Hunger). Connor’s flirtatious familiarity walks a dangerous line. Mia is thrown off balance by his presence, shirtless, in her mum’s kitchen. She’s drawn to him despite her natural inclination to launch an expletive-filled verbal assault by way of greeting. One thing is for sure – no good can come of Mia’s reluctant crush.

Arnold, along with her cinematographer Robbie Ryan, is sympathetic to the subtlest flickers in the performances of her actors. Particularly effective is the sound design – when the sound of Mia’s agitated breathing surrounds us, we can almost feel the racing of her heart. Arnold slowly cranks up the tension; the sense that something terrible might happen looms like a storm cloud. Mia might be as approachable as razor-wire, but thanks to Arnold’s sensitive handling, we care about her.

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