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Submarine (2010)
I had been waiting to watching “Submarine” for a while before I eventually got round to it, for a number of reasons. First of all it’s filmed in Wales and I believe partly produced by a Welsh funding project so I was curious to see a film that had a kind of local connection to my country. The second reason, and main factor was Richard Ayoade, although I have not seen “The IT Crowd” or “The Watch” (which I am told is poor although Ayoade is a strong performer) I was interested to see the work of a young director who I had not heard much of before until I saw his published list in the recent Directors’ Sight and Sound Poll.
Although this sentence may sound rather odd you can tell a lot from a director from the films he lists as his favourites and influences, I knew Ayoade was involved in comedy but his list tells me this is a man who clearly has great knowledge in films and has been influenced by the fantastic work of others.
His influences are clear in “Submarine”, an extremely clever teen comedy. The film is about a boy who has to deal with two relationships; his own and his parents. Although it is a teen comedy it is far from an immature or silly film that you may have expected instead is very intelligent and neatly composed, perhaps too neat.
The film is carefully crafted, it is split by defined sections and you can see how each scene is carefully put together with great attention to detail. In a way this film reminds me of the works of Wes Anderson in the way that the focus is on such a clear structure for the film to take place in. One of the criticisms of Anderson’s work is that although his filmmaking is superb that sometimes they are too neat and clever for themselves and that the actual story is missing that something. Submarine feels similar to that, although I admired the work of Ayoade and did enjoy the plot on the whole I did feel that in some parts the story was quite slow and not very progressive in the middle.
Craig Roberts gives us a great performance as the film’s character of focus, young Oliver Tate. He is a odd and troubled teen who can be seen as socially awkward, he has many thoughts and wants to be with Jordana who is portrayed by Yasmin Paige but their relationship has a number of problems. The chemistry between the two is very good and we sympathise with both of them, more Oliver who we feel frustrated at because of his strange actions in certain situations that he is not aware of himself, we sympathise him because we can understand and recognise his situation as a teenager, his performance seems real and the sweet relationship at the heart of the film works well overall.
RATING:
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I had been waiting to watching “Submarine” for a while before I eventually got round to it, for a number of reasons. First of all it’s filmed in Wales and I believe partly produced by a Welsh funding project so I was curious to see a film that had a kind of local connection to my country. The second reason, and main factor was Richard Ayoade, although I have not seen “The IT Crowd” or “The Watch” (which I am told is poor although Ayoade is a strong performer) I was interested to see the work of a young director who I had not heard much of before until I saw his published list in the recent Directors’ Sight and Sound Poll.
Although this sentence may sound rather odd you can tell a lot from a director from the films he lists as his favourites and influences, I knew Ayoade was involved in comedy but his list tells me this is a man who clearly has great knowledge in films and has been influenced by the fantastic work of others.
His influences are clear in “Submarine”, an extremely clever teen comedy. The film is about a boy who has to deal with two relationships; his own and his parents. Although it is a teen comedy it is far from an immature or silly film that you may have expected instead is very intelligent and neatly composed, perhaps too neat.
The film is carefully crafted, it is split by defined sections and you can see how each scene is carefully put together with great attention to detail. In a way this film reminds me of the works of Wes Anderson in the way that the focus is on such a clear structure for the film to take place in. One of the criticisms of Anderson’s work is that although his filmmaking is superb that sometimes they are too neat and clever for themselves and that the actual story is missing that something. Submarine feels similar to that, although I admired the work of Ayoade and did enjoy the plot on the whole I did feel that in some parts the story was quite slow and not very progressive in the middle.
Craig Roberts gives us a great performance as the film’s character of focus, young Oliver Tate. He is a odd and troubled teen who can be seen as socially awkward, he has many thoughts and wants to be with Jordana who is portrayed by Yasmin Paige but their relationship has a number of problems. The chemistry between the two is very good and we sympathise with both of them, more Oliver who we feel frustrated at because of his strange actions in certain situations that he is not aware of himself, we sympathise him because we can understand and recognise his situation as a teenager, his performance seems real and the sweet relationship at the heart of the film works well overall.
RATING: