Submarine

SUBMARINE
OPTIMUM RELEASING
RELEASED 18 March 2011

Hailed upon it’s premiere at the London Film Festival 2010, Richard Ayoade’s ‘Submarine’ marks the debut of a very promising British director. Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) is a young dreamer who thinks life should be like a movie. He pictures himself as a big romantic who ‘gets the girl’, but in reality he’s a bit annoying, both to schoolmates and even his parents. The girl he desires is Jordana Bevan (Yasmin Paige), a manipulative bully who he tries to impress by joining in the bullying of a large girl with humiliating results. Giving in to his advances, Jordana and Oliver share a carefree relationship of lighting small fires, shooting Super 8 movies, and snogging by industrial wastelands. When his parents crumbling marriage hits breaking point at the same time as Jordana’s mum faces death from cancer, it seems Oliver can’t quite say or do the right thing.

Based on the novel by Joe Dunthorne, writer/director Richard Ayoade has crafted a unique, poignant look at teenage angst and the hard times we’ve all faced at some point in growing up and trying to understand the larger world we’re moving into. It’s a very funny film, which naturally develops into something more serious in tone towards the end but doesn’t lose it’s character. The acting is great across the board, and the best part surely goes to Paddy Considine as a new age speaker who possesses a wonderful 70′s mullet and lectures on the supreme and mystical magic of ‘light’. His airbrushed transit van is a wonder to behold.

Ayoade also gives the film a mix of visual styles, using stark typography between scenes as well as making the film stock occasionally look like moving polaroids. The film isn’t specifically set in any set time period, but it definitely has a brown/orange 70′s vibe. There’s a great soundtrack which isn’t a case of some trendy pop song every five minutes, but picks it’s moments carefully.

‘Submarine’ will be one of the films of 2011, and heralds the emergence of a very creative and intelligent bright new young director.

FOUR OUT OF FIVE