David O'Connell
MIFF 2011: Submarine
July 26th 2011 02:16
Welsh teenage Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) has a new obsession. Fellow student Jordana Bevan (Yasmin Paige) is the girl he fantasises about being his first true love. At home Oliver is lumbered with his slightly weird parents: marine biologist father Lloyd (a deadpanning Noah Taylor) exudes as little charisma as a doorknob and seems distressingly apathetic about his floundering marriage to Jill (for once, a less than slightly loopy Sally Hawkins), even when absurd new neighbour - and old flame - mystic Graham Purvis (a very funny Paddy Considine) moves in next door, posing a new threat.
In adapting Joe Dunthorne’s novel, director Richard Ayoade places heavy emphasis on Oliver’s voiceover to chart the teen’s wry, ironic observational interaction with the world. He’s the prototypical anti-hero, the intelligent oddball and outsider with a skewed, possibly deluded outlook. And who more of us than not would be likely to identity with.
My only real complaint with Submarine (2010), with its abundance of Wes Anderson influences, is that it becomes a bit too self-consciously quirky. At some point you do need to draw a line and begin to examine your characters as fully rounded human beings rather that a glut of eccentricities to be exposed and exploited for comedic or other purposes. Oliver’s battles to win over Jordana and on the other hand resurrect his parents’ marriage feel undermined by an emotional immaturity.
Regardless, I was able to mostly overlook these slight quibbles ultimately, simply because of the wonderful performances from Roberts and Paige and the sheer joy of watching this unruly (in the best possible way) story unfold with such creative flair. Ayoade’s direction is dazzlingly inventive, his camera constantly in motion as the drabness of Oliver’s world is refracted through a series of arresting perspectives that raise the storytelling to another level of idiosyncratic distinction.
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