Submarine (2011)
Directed by Richard Ayoade
15-year-old deep-thinking Welsh schoolboy Oliver Tate struggles to initiate and maintain a relationship with Jordana, his devilish, dark-haired classmate at their Swansea high school. As his parents' marriage begins to fall apart, similar problems arise in his relationship with Jordana.
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The film is a fictional "memoir" about the too-clever-for-his-own-good Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) -- a kid blessed with Bud Cort's "Harold and Maude" mien and several dark stylistic affectations, of which he is amusingly self-aware.
It's a sweet, knowing, bracingly deadpan coming-of-age story that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve – Wes Anderson's Rushmore, Harold and Maude, and Mike Nichols' The Graduate spring immediately to mind – and it's set in a grim and gritty Swansea, replete with concrete council flats and muddy, muddled dreams that'd do Morrissey and Marr proud in their existential despair.
A better descriptionin terms of comparisonswould be that its like a Wes Anderson movie as if it was directed by Richard Lester in the 1960s with nods to Mike Nichols The Graduate (1967) and Hal Ashbys Harold and Maude (1971).
Newcomer Craig Roberts takes at least a pound and a half of inspiration from Bud Cort's romantically inclined misfit in "Harold and Maude" for his defiantly humorous portrayal of the 15-year-old Oliver Tate.
He also looks so much like young Bud Cort that if you gave him a pair of Harry Potter glasses, he could star in a remake of " Harold and Maude ."
He must not be including characters of the silver screen, since he's an amalgamation if there ever was one between Harold Chasen in 1971's "Harold and Maude" and Max Fischer in 1998's " Rushmore ."
Comparisons will abound to Wes Anderson’s breakthrough, 1998’s Rushmore , thanks to the vaguely vintage era that encourages solipsism and the intricate production design, but Anderson’s 15-year-old, Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), lusts for the imagined glory of the adult world, whereas Oliver has his eyes firmly on the real adolescent prize of losing his virginity and surviving the schoolyard.
It's a sweet, knowing, bracingly deadpan coming-of-age story that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve – Wes Anderson's Rushmore, Harold and Maude, and Mike Nichols' The Graduate spring immediately to mind – and it's set in a grim and gritty Swansea, replete with concrete council flats and muddy, muddled dreams that'd do Morrissey and Marr proud in their existential despair.
You're going to be hearing Submarine described often as "the Welsh Rushmore"-- it's even on the film's official TIFF site -- but I was actually relieved to find out that it wasn't.
Ayoade owes a debt to Wes Anderson (Rushmore), but the parents here are so beautifully written, and Hawkins and Taylor particularize them so well, that the movie manages to hold its own.
Its being promoted as something in the vein of Wes Andersonthink Rushmore set in Walesand thats not unreasonable, but its hardly the whole story.
The directing debut of British comic actor Richard Ayoade, it owes various debts to various predecessors — a little “Napoleon Dynamite,’’ a lot of “Rushmore,’’ a loving soupcon of French New Wave — but “Submarine’’ has its own specific miseries and darkly funny vibe.
It's a sweet, knowing, bracingly deadpan coming-of-age story that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve – Wes Anderson's Rushmore, Harold and Maude, and Mike Nichols' The Graduate spring immediately to mind – and it's set in a grim and gritty Swansea, replete with concrete council flats and muddy, muddled dreams that'd do Morrissey and Marr proud in their existential despair.
A better descriptionin terms of comparisonswould be that its like a Wes Anderson movie as if it was directed by Richard Lester in the 1960s with nods to Mike Nichols The Graduate (1967) and Hal Ashbys Harold and Maude (1971).
Lifting from Wes Anderson , Noah Baumbach , Danny Boyle , Whit Stillman and older avatars such as Richard Lester (let's not even start on its tributes to tributes to Truffaut 's " The 400 Blows "), it's so relentless in its piling on of snappy effects -- perfectly frozen freeze-frames, "quirky" mismatches of narration and image, and more, more, more -- that it kind of plays like " The Graduate " going through steroid psychosis.
"A Hard Day's Night" is one of the influences below the surface here, along with American love stories from "The Graduate" to "Garden State."
Whatever flaws the film may have, it’s certainly unlike anything else in theaters right now and yet will likely remind certain viewers of beloved films like “The Graduate,” “Harold and Maude,” and “Rushmore.”
A deadpan adolescent romance in the vein of The Graduate , Rushmore , or Harold and Maude , this wistful little movie can feel thrillingly new one moment and familiar as an old sweater the next.
It's a stylish, touching, overly cute film, much influenced by the French New Wave, though capable of nodding towards Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now.
There's even an unexpected nod to 1973's Nicolas Roeg masterpiece " Don't Look Now ," a sure-fire sign that director Richard Ayoade knows his cinema history.
Conventionally, you get characters that are male pyros, damp bedwets, but a female pyro in a Nic Roeg “Don’t Look Now”-Red Riding Hood anorak?
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Lifting from Wes Anderson , Noah Baumbach , Danny Boyle , Whit Stillman and older avatars such as Richard Lester (let's not even start on its tributes to tributes to Truffaut 's " The 400 Blows "), it's so relentless in its piling on of snappy effects -- perfectly frozen freeze-frames, "quirky" mismatches of narration and image, and more, more, more -- that it kind of plays like " The Graduate " going through steroid psychosis.
Coming-of-age movies involving precocious, troublesome boys are a genre unto themselves, ranging from "Rushmore" to Truffaut's "The 400 Blows."
At one point, he can be seen running across a beach like another coming-of-age touchstone, Antoine Doinel, in a scene that is a direct visual quote of The 400 Blows.
There's a reoccurring beach motif that invokes François Truffaut's The 400 Blows.
One can tell that such a quality is going to run rampant, starting with the title card (the first three letters of the title in one line over the next three in the second line over the final three in the third line) that's quite reminiscent of the same in Wes Anderson flicks, while the voice over narration and little and quickly edited comedy asides feel quite a bit like the same in "Amelie" and others of their ilk.
Ayoade borrows liberally from other filmmakers, including the family dynamics of Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale and the speeded-up graphics of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie .
For all these reasons, it may seem a tad weak and derivative in its structure and approach compared to a number of prior and more superior films such as Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s “Amélie” (2001).
The 33-year-old veteran of TV’s “The IT Crowd” points out that Oliver is constantly donning new gear, new hats, new identities: a poster of Alain Delon in “Le Samouraï” above his bedstead looms less as homage to a movie the filmmaker admires as another sharp dresser a teenager could never hope to grow to be.
Oliver even takes his hip girlfriend to a screening of “The Passion of Joan of Arc” while trying to impress her with copies of “King Lear,” the works of Nietzsche, and a dog-eared copy of “The Catcher in the Rye.”
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Somewhere in the space between "Gregory's Girl" and "Rushmore" lies " Submarine " (opening June 24 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas), a charming coming of age romantic comedy.
When we see Oliver desolate over the loss of his girlfriend, his kindred spirit isn’t so much Max Fischer as the forlorn, clueless Gregory in Gregory’s Girl (1981).
Ayoade delivers a very self-aware coming of age movie that favorable compares to “Juno” and “Ghost World.”
The result is a deliciously sardonic yet heartfelt film that emerges from a sea of adolescent angst with as much charm as such recent praiseworthy fare as Terry Zwigoff's Ghost Worldand Miguel Arteta's Youth in Revolt.