Submarine
Original post date: 6 February 2019
Rating: ✭✭✭✰
One review I read of this very funny and very evocative 2010 Welsh coming-of-tale used the shorthand “Max Fischer meets Billy Liar.” (The former refers to Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, the latter is John Schlesinger’s 1963 Walter-Mitty-esque movie set in England’s gloomy north country.) This is indeed like an Anderson film, though I confess that did not occur to me as I watched it. I was reminded instead of the quirky spate of filmic Bildungsromans that sprouted on screens in the late 1960s and early 1970s and which no doubt inspired Rushmore and perhaps this. The blank stare on the face of our protagonist Oliver (Craig Roberts) is reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, but he is really more like Bud Cort, who appeared in movies like Brewster McCloud and, especially, Harold and Maude. Though he lets us down badly in moral terms (he is, after all, male and adolescent), Oliver is amusing company. A single child, he and his parents are all clearly too intelligent for their own good. As typical of so many in his age group, he imagines himself way cooler than he actually is and is fluent in cinema. Viewing his own life as a film, at times he almost literally directs the movie from within. We follow his awkward progress as he strives to lose his virginity, navigate the shoals of the resultant relationship, and agonize over his mother’s apparent flirtation with a new neighbor, who happens to be an old flame. The cast is a Brit flick fan’s dream come true: reticently-overthinking Noah Taylor as the dad, empathy-cloaked-in-formality Sally Hawkins as the mum, and swaggeringly-ersatz-deep Paddy Considine as the temptation. Yasmin Paige (one-time regular of the Doctor Who spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures) eventually wins us over as Oliver’s determinedly no-nonsense girlfriend. The soundtrack is infused with songs by Alex Turner (of Arctic Monkeys), though I might have pegged Oliver to be a Belle and Sebastian fan. One of the best gags is when his father offers him a mixtape to get him through his new relationship, complete with breakup songs for the eventual, inevitable split. Comedian/actor/filmmaker Richard Ayoade (a regular on the Britcom The IT Crowd) adapted this charmer from Joe Dunthorne’s novel. Young Roberts would subsequently be seen in a not-dissimilar role, though in a 1980s Jewish-American milieu, for four years in the nostalgic Amazon series Red Oaks.
Rating: ✭✭✭✰
One review I read of this very funny and very evocative 2010 Welsh coming-of-tale used the shorthand “Max Fischer meets Billy Liar.” (The former refers to Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, the latter is John Schlesinger’s 1963 Walter-Mitty-esque movie set in England’s gloomy north country.) This is indeed like an Anderson film, though I confess that did not occur to me as I watched it. I was reminded instead of the quirky spate of filmic Bildungsromans that sprouted on screens in the late 1960s and early 1970s and which no doubt inspired Rushmore and perhaps this. The blank stare on the face of our protagonist Oliver (Craig Roberts) is reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, but he is really more like Bud Cort, who appeared in movies like Brewster McCloud and, especially, Harold and Maude. Though he lets us down badly in moral terms (he is, after all, male and adolescent), Oliver is amusing company. A single child, he and his parents are all clearly too intelligent for their own good. As typical of so many in his age group, he imagines himself way cooler than he actually is and is fluent in cinema. Viewing his own life as a film, at times he almost literally directs the movie from within. We follow his awkward progress as he strives to lose his virginity, navigate the shoals of the resultant relationship, and agonize over his mother’s apparent flirtation with a new neighbor, who happens to be an old flame. The cast is a Brit flick fan’s dream come true: reticently-overthinking Noah Taylor as the dad, empathy-cloaked-in-formality Sally Hawkins as the mum, and swaggeringly-ersatz-deep Paddy Considine as the temptation. Yasmin Paige (one-time regular of the Doctor Who spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures) eventually wins us over as Oliver’s determinedly no-nonsense girlfriend. The soundtrack is infused with songs by Alex Turner (of Arctic Monkeys), though I might have pegged Oliver to be a Belle and Sebastian fan. One of the best gags is when his father offers him a mixtape to get him through his new relationship, complete with breakup songs for the eventual, inevitable split. Comedian/actor/filmmaker Richard Ayoade (a regular on the Britcom The IT Crowd) adapted this charmer from Joe Dunthorne’s novel. Young Roberts would subsequently be seen in a not-dissimilar role, though in a 1980s Jewish-American milieu, for four years in the nostalgic Amazon series Red Oaks.
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