Review: Submarine
Free yourself from the trappings of time and imagine a very young Bud Cort in a coming-of-age movie written by Bill Forsyth (Gregory's Girl) and directed by Bob Byington (Harmony and Me), transport the scenario to Wales, and you have an idea of what you're getting into with Submarine, which opens in Austin this week.
Submarine is one of those movies I feel I really shouldn't like. Too precious. Quirkiness for its own sake. Voiceover narration, and you know how I feel about that unless Billy Wilder is involved. And it's yet another coming-of-age movie, a period piece even, and isn't that done to death?
But somehow, like its main character, Submarine is weirdly likeable. Maybe even lovable in spots. The sense of humor is off-kilter and the movie reminds me quite strongly of my own high-school days, but doesn't resort to nostalgia or anything the least bit sappy. I want to give the movie and all its characters a hug … or perhaps, like one of the female characters does to her boyfriends, burn its leg hair. It's an impressive feature directorial debut for actor Richard Ayoade, whose last name I hope someday to be able to pronounce correctly.
Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) is a high school student in Wales (or whatever the equivalent there may be to high school). He's smitten with the charms of the lovely if slightly cruel Jordana (Yasmin Paige), who likes playing with matches and taunting other students, and hates anything even vaguely romantic. Oliver is also worried about his parents (Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins), whom he's put under personal surveillance and suspects they haven't had sex in months. Adding to his worries are the new "ninja" neighbors, including a self-proclaimed psychic (Paddy Considine) who, it turns out, dated Oliver's mom before his dad came along.
The movie we are essentially watching, I believe, is a movie in Oliver's head – the story he's telling about this period in his life. There's a cute and funny montage of his interactions with Jordana that's styled as a Super 8 family movie. A sequence in the woods in which a group of students taunt a "fat girl" includes a couple of freeze-frame moments that add to the odd juxtaposition of emotions in the scene and make it simultaneously funny and sad.
Submarine is set at some unspecified point in the past – we see no computers or cell phones, Oliver types his letters and pamphlets on a typewriter and he owns a Polaroid. My guess would be the late 1980s. At times e reminds me of another British character from that same time period, Adrian Mole in the Sue Townsend books, but somewhat less whiny.
The familiar actors in supporting roles manage the difficult trick of good performances that don't overshadow the younger stars of the movie. Sally Hawkins is excellently understated as Oliver's mom, going through her mid-life crisis when her old flame moves next door. Noah Taylor, whom you might remember from the Austin-shot movie Red White and Blue, plays the chronically depressed, slightly bewildered dad, a marine biologist more comfortable with science than people. Considine's psychic was strikingly similar at times to Dr. Ronald Chevalier, which thanks to Jemaine Clement was the one delightful thing about Gentlemen Broncos.
Director Richard Ayoade adapted Submarine from the novel by Joe Dunthorne, which I haven't read, so I have no idea how much of that sly, sideways humor is the filmmaker's own. Some of it does remind me of my primary exposure to Ayoade -- his acting gig as Moss on the extremely funny British TV show The IT Crowd. (Ayoade also directed the "Critical Film Studies" episode of Community that plays on My Dinner with Andre.)
Submarine takes a little too long to end, and it drops characters I wish it had kept. The fresh humor at the beginning of the movie is nearly drained dry by the end. But Oliver is an oddly compelling young man to watch, and so are most of the people who serve as the supporting characters in his life as well as in Submarine. This is the first of two movies I've enjoyed this summer about offbeat British teenagers (with accents Americans may find hard to understand, so pay attention) ... the second one being Attack the Block, which we'll see in Austin in another month or so.