Submarine – a tale of adolescence set in the great welsh outback

I had high hopes for Submarine; many a critic had revelled in this feature film from first time director Richard Ayoade (one of the actors from the IT Crowd) and based on the bestselling novel Joe Dunthorne.

It centres on a 15 year old boy Oliver Tate who before his next b-day is looking to lose his virginity & prevent his parents from breaking up - the catalyst for this potential break up being a ninja/hippy/ rocker - old flame (Paddy Constantine) that has come back into his mother’s life.

The humour often manifests itself in the narration from Oliver, his rather bizarre behaviour & also his mother’s old flame Graham Purvis, who seems to believe he is some sort of healer of minds! With a colourful painted van and some disco lights in the back, it’s not hard to establish that this fella is nothing short of rather large bell end. And when Oliver decides to throw up all over his car bonnet (as you do when you’re a little ticked off) you can see he ain’t too fond of him either.

In the quest for popping his cherry for this first time Oliver pursues a young lady by the name of Jordana Bevan - a reasonably plane chick who sits on the fence between the geeks and the cool kids of the school. She resists him at first, but gives into his rather awkward charms. What then follows is uncomfortable scene after uncomfortable scene where our protagonist is torn between committing to his responsibilities as a boyfriend & saving his parent’s marriage.

This is certainly not a ‘roll around laughing your ass off’ kind of flick. It’s an odd sort of ‘chuckle to yourself every now and again’ kind of thing, you know. Nothing wrong with that though I say and it gives the film a lovely charm capturing wonderfully the growing pains we all endure as we wonder through life’s little journey.

The overall pace and camera lingering (often) as Oliver either stares longingly into Jordana’s eyes or just generally into space in contemplation can at times be a little annoying after a while. But I guess that does set the tone and over feel for the film pretty well.

Alex Turner from the Arctic Monkeys has also been tasked with the soundtrack & does a top job of it too!

So I think 7 northern thumbs out of 10 for this one.

Good job.