Features > Movie Reviews > Submarine…

Banish images of periscopes and the echo of sonar pings from your mind; instead, think duffel coats, Welsh accents, and the mortifications of adolescent romance.

The source is Joe Dunthorne’s comic novel of course, and presumably, before that, his own coming of age pangs and passions. Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) is 15, a virgin, and properly preoccupied by that fact. He’s also given to interior monologues about his own intellectual superiority, strategic reflections on his unwanted outsider status, and his parents’ marriage – which is headed for the rocks, he reckons, given their non-existent sex life.

Trouble is brewing: his mum (Sally Hawkins) is unduly pleased to see an old friend move into the house down the road: Graham (the inimitable Paddy Considine) is a mullet-topped self-styled self-help guru, exactly the kind of lothario a frustrated middle-aged wife and mother would find irresistible (so Oliver thinks). Meanwhile his sad dad (Noah Taylor) seems to have given up the fight.

It’s probably impossible to write about Submarine without at least passing mention to Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, which must count as its spiritual American cousin. Written and directed by Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd), the film has that same mock irony and self-conscious stylization camouflaging its inner sincerity. Like Max Fischer, Oliver Tate is rehearsing the starring role he knows he’s cut out for in life, only no one seems to have given him an up-to-date copy of the script. There’s a lot of Holden Caulfield, Adrian Mole and Billy Liar in his make up too. We are all the sum of our influences, and narcissistic adolescent males more than most.

How knowing is Oliver? Try this quote for size: “It’s probably an affectation, but I like to imagine myself being followed around by a film crew,” he says, before adding ruefully that budget realities being what they are, he’d be stuck with zooms, not crane shots – which is of course the case.

Ayoade, who also wrote the screenplay, is not a complete novice behind the camera: he directed several episodes of Gareth Marenghi’s Darkplace and Man to Man with Dean Lerner, and pop videos for the Arctic Monkeys, Vampire Weekend and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, culminating in the Arctic Monkeys at the Apollo concert film. Which would be how Alex Turner came to contribute several specially written songs to the film, which Ayoade presents almost like musical interludes, surreal episodes that comment obliquely on the action but could equally work as stand-alone pop videos.

What keeps all this from becoming unbearably arch and, yes, “affected”, is the realisation that this is the kind of movie a wouldbe hipster like Oliver really would envisage for himself, complete with new wave jump cuts, freeze frames and dramatic slow-motion rhapsodies. He even throws in fireworks for good measure. But his resolutely unromantic girlfriend, Jordana (Yasmin Paige), is having none of it. And when she really needs him, he’s well out of his depth.

It’s quite something, the way Ayoade glances off some truly dark themes – depression, illness, marital discord – without betraying the film’s comic lightness or its adolescent’s eye view. Credit to the actors of course – everyone is on great form here – and Paige and Roberts never put a foot wrong.

Maybe it could use a couple more big belly laughs – if you read some of the raves it’s been getting you might be a bit let-down on that score – but Submarine takes some pretty familiar subject matter and makes it feel fresh and unpredictable and true.