Review of Submarine (2011) by Michael D — 07 Mar 2012

A highly assured debut from Richard Ayoade, this Bildungsroman of a sensitive young male and his trials and tribulations reminded me a bit of 'The Squid and the Whale' and 'Donnie Darko' but the biggest influence by far is Francois Truffaut and the cinema of the Nouvelle Vague. Sometimes this over-reliance on the past jars - the Godard-esque inter-titles and fades to colour fields were a bit too much homagistic style over substance - but the look of the film, the editing and pacing is beautifully done and the performaces are uniformly fantastic and it's good to see a British film about everyday life that takes stylistic chances and gets away from the kitchen-sink realism we have seen many times before.

Hopefully Ayoade will continue to make films as fresh and inventive as this - and the Alex Turner soundtrack is great. But - just to show off what a pathetic detail nerd that I am - The Orb's 'Little Fluffy Clouds' and Wordsworth's Classic Series of paperbacks were most certainly not released at the same year as 'Crocodile Dundee'...