Submarine (Richard Ayoade)
In Richard Ayoade's assured debut feature he seems to be asserting his cinephile credentials by wearing his influences proudly on his sleeve. 'Submarine' most obviously evokes the Nouvelle Vague - especially Truffaut and Goddard - but there's a few surprising nods to 'Harold and Maude' and 'Don't Look Now'. But what lifts it all from slavish homage is the sheer joy and fun of it all. And the precocious leads are really great. Most especially Craig Roberts as Oliver - his dead-pan presence is like a warmer (less creepy?) Bud Cort as Harold (from 'Harold & Maude') - the duffle coat and lank mop are surely there to reinforce this. He hardly ever expresses more than a laboured grin and his downbeat monotone narration stops things getting too mushy (despite my irritation of most voice-overs). But his puppy-dog eyes encourages us to warm to him a little more than he sometimes deserves (he's not really grumpy, just a repressed intellectual) so that we forgive his pompous allusions & affectations and the rotten way he treats Jordana - as played by Yasmin Paige. She's good too - Jordana has a defiance of all things sentimental which is a perfect foil for Oliver's pretensions.
Unfortunately the grown-ups are given short shrift. Sally Hawkins manages to shine through with genuine warmth as Oliver's mother. But Noah Taylor's miserable 'dad-in-a-dressing-gown' and Paddy Considine's caricature of the 'other man' are somewhat one-dimensional and decidedly irritating. This is probably the intention - teenage coming of age tales usually have little time for the grown-ups and distance is often required when emphasising the isolation. But such scant regard for characterisation made it hard to empathise and so had me scratching my head wondering, not only why the parents would stay together but why this woman would even consider the phoney smarm of the alternative. It's only a minor quibble though. It's still a thoroughly entertaining little flic, with enough cinematic allusions and tricks to keep me interested in what Richard Ayoade may come up with next.
originally posted on Flixter May 25th 2011
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