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Movie Review: Submarine

Gregory Fichter

Liberally adapting from Joe Dunthorne’s celebrated novel, British sitcom star Richard Ayoade graduates from television and music video work with his stunningly accomplished debut film Submarine—a cinematic mash note to the books and films which influenced the relatively young director. A movie for those who listen to The Smiths, wear long scarves, and have seen Harold and Maude more times than they can count, Submarine takes overly-familiar clichés of the coming-of-age genre and peppers them with the vinegar wit that the British do so well, while topping it off with an arsenal of pop-poetic movie tricks.

A blend of celebrated young miscreants throughout time—be it the anti-social stance of Holden Caulfield or the penchant for mischief and minor larceny embodied by Antoine Doinel (The 400 Blows, 1959)—fifteen-year-old Oliver Tate (the perfectly deadpan newcomer Craig Roberts) deals with the vicious realities of school life and the possible dissolution of his oddball parents’ marriage by seeking answers in sociology books and old films. His dad (Noah Taylor) gives clinical diagnoses rather than fatherly advice and his mother (Sally Hawkins) has her sights on their new neighbor—a leather-clad New Age guru (Paddy Considine) she used to date. Too analytical and neurotic for his young age, Oliver devises schemes to set things right—an overactive teenage imagination and borderline sociopathic behavior result in some terrific comedy out of Max Fischer’s Rushmore playbook.

Adding to Oliver’s look of perpetual confusion is an anti-romance with his maybe-girlfriend Jordana (Yasmin Paige). Significantly softened from the devious character in the novel, Jordana is still an acerbic antidote to the idealized pixie dreamgirls popular in American teen flicks. Her face shrouded in an imposing bob hairstyle, she is more romantic antagonist than fondly-remembered first love, yet when set to composer Alex Turner’s musical score of twee pop songs the character’s rough edges melt away and the director lets them exist in the perfect movie moment that is the “falling-in-love montage.” Here Ayoade really gets to show off the stylistic flourishes he honed in his music video projects, indulging a preternatural feel for camera placement and rhythmic editing.

Things get off course a bit in the subplot involving Oliver’s mum and the mystical lothario, but those scenes will draw the biggest laughs. As the amazingly-named Graham T. Purvis, Considine is a strong comic presence who overdoes it in his broad satirical role; whether preening in a seminar on the “prismatic colors of the soul” or practicing outdoor tantric sex, he remains a goofy, easy target and an unnecessary distraction. In these scenes, the director’s sitcom tendencies come to the fore and leave us waiting for a return to the awkward by-play between Oliver and Jordana.

Destined to become a cult favorite, Submarine is ultimately a film which is hard to review objectively; the cinematic mix-tape of images and references will reach their intended audience, while many will bristle at the preciousness of it all. Place me firmly in the camp that can recognize all of the borrowed elements but still fell in love with its sour/sweet charms.

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Gregory Fichter

Greg toiled for years in the hallowed bowels of the legendary Thomas Video and has studied cinema as part of the Concentration for Film Studies and Aesthetics at Oakland University. He has hosted the cult movie night "Celluloid Sundays" at The Belmont in Hamtramck, MI. and enjoys everything from High Trash to Low Art.

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