Review of Submarine (2011) by Kevin N — 04 May 2012

Anchored by an absolutely brilliant performance by young Craig Roberts, 'Submarine' is a refreshingly honest, perverse, funny, and sometimes difficult look at one boy's journey into and out of puberty.

Teenaged Oliver (Roberts) has two concerns at the beginning of the film: his parents' sex life and his own. He bounces back and forth between struggling to make sure his mother and father stay together and trying eagerly, sincerely, desperately to get laid.

The trophy of his hard work is Jordana (Yasmin Paige), a foul-mouthed, cigarette-smoking tough girl whose primary idea of an attractive boy is one who keeps his emotions to himself and who doesn't mind getting in some trouble.

From the get-go, via the film's perfectly toned (and hysterical) voice-over narration, Oliver lets us know that he's bending his own principals in order to attract this girl's attention, and from that moment forward the film, for us, becomes less about our protagonist getting lucky and more about the hope that he might realize just how wrong his sacrifice is.

Riffing directly off of cinema from the French New Wave (the titles are unmistakably Godardian and the ending attempts to twist an iconic Francois Truffaut scene), writer/director Richard Ayoade is in love with the medium he is telling this story through, just as he loves his subjects.

The film is as offbeat and stylish as its characters. This is a polished, quirky work in a tired genre, one that is as genuinely funny as it is serious about exploring adolescent angst and frustration.