Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Fish Tank (2009)

Connor: You need sortin' out, you do.
Mia: So you keep sayin'. But you're
nothing to me, so why should I listen?

Could those two lines of dialogue embody the crux of Andrea Arnold's entire film career? I feel like they might.  To be somewhat reductive you've got a good-fuck of a man who represents sexy danger telling a wild female protagonist to get her shit together when he realizes he might be fucked up but good golly she's fucked up up, while her arc sitting across from him is the realization of, "Fuck you, brother -- I'm awesome. This shit's on you." I think it may, I think it might. 

Curious to see how Andrea (who turns 58 today) rolls that into the second season of Big Little Lies -- she is a very different filmmaker than Jean-Marc Vallée; much darker, and more inclined towards the cliff's edge of complications and contradictions. I still can't believe we're about to see (it premiere sin June, by the way) hours and hours of Andrea Arnold directing Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern, you guys. 

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ANDREA ARNOLD DIRECTING MERYL STREEP
ANDREA ARNOLD DIRECTING MERYL STREEP
ANDREA ARNOLD DIRECTING MERYL STREEP
ANDREA ARNOLD DIRECTING MERYL STREEP
ANDREA ARNOLD DIRECTING MERYL STREEP
ANDREA ARNOLD DIRECTING MERYL STREEP

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 24, 2018

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Anyway because it's the birthday of one of my tip-top favorite directors working today and she's about to have a real big year with the challenge of delivering the sophomore season of a show that almost actively called out against such a thing happening and we want to wish her nothing but success, let's give her a little more love. I worship and adore all four of her feature films -- Red Road, Fish Tank, Wuthering Heights, and American Honey -- but how would you rank them? Here's mine below -- tell me your ranking in the comments!