Submarine On general release from 18th March
Richard Ayoade, the ultra-timid star of television show The IT Crowd, has perched himself in the director’s chair of a full length British feature film with the ambition of someone who might just be deadly serious. It turns out to be an inventive and funny directorial debut. Submarine is adapted from Joe Dunthorne’s novel about Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts), a briefcase-wielding self-important adolescent with a huge crush on schoolgirl Jordana Bevan (Yasmin Paige). They live in a Swansea backwater, where it appears there’s little for teenagers to do but obsess. As if the huge potential embarrassments of young lust were not impediment enough to Oliver’s grandiose plans, he suspects his repressed mother (Sally Hawkins) of having an affair with a new age therapist neighbour (Paddy Considine) and is infuriated by the lack of interest shown by his father (Noah Taylor).
There’s more than a hint of Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, but Ayoade has clearly also absorbed a lot of earlier great cinema. He’s very adept at catching that effervescent mix of callowness, off-beat chic, beach-worship and genuine romantic fondness that characterised the best of the early French new wave films.
Richard Ayoade, the ultra-timid star of television show The IT Crowd, has perched himself in the director’s chair of a full length British feature film with the ambition of someone who might just be deadly serious. It turns out to be an inventive and funny directorial debut. Submarine is adapted from Joe Dunthorne’s novel about Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts), a briefcase-wielding self-important adolescent with a huge crush on schoolgirl Jordana Bevan (Yasmin Paige). They live in a Swansea backwater, where it appears there’s little for teenagers to do but obsess. As if the huge potential embarrassments of young lust were not impediment enough to Oliver’s grandiose plans, he suspects his repressed mother (Sally Hawkins) of having an affair with a new age therapist neighbour (Paddy Considine) and is infuriated by the lack of interest shown by his father (Noah Taylor).
There’s more than a hint of Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, but Ayoade has clearly also absorbed a lot of earlier great cinema. He’s very adept at catching that effervescent mix of callowness, off-beat chic, beach-worship and genuine romantic fondness that characterised the best of the early French new wave films.
