Submarine (2010)

When I found out Richard Ayode was making a teen movie in Swansea, i felt one of those pangs of 'That should be me. I should be Ayode's represention on screen'.  He would mentor me in the ways of style and comedy and tell his secrets and what his sister-in-law Billie Piper was like.
Obviously that didn't happen but I've been excited to see his directorial debut for a while. Apart from writing and comedy genius, he's been blessed with a strong directorial style too. Any review of Submarine that casts allusions to Wes Anderson is kinda short sighted. As much as I love the prospect of any new Wes Anderson films, he doesn't own the rights to precociousness!
Submarine is a funny-funny sweet film that will haunt my dreams with thoughts that if I looked like a cute 15yo Alex Turner, me and Ayode would be like *that*. That's unfair to the kid in the main part of Oliver cos he good and funny and delightful. And the girl who played the pyromanic schoolgirl object of his desire is as infatuation-worthy as it's permissable for a 27yo me to get away with saying. She's like a valleys Ramona Flowers (You like that don't you?)  Rounding out parts of Oliver's parents, Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins are great and good. Taylor gets to use his Australian accent for once as this unintentionally cool dad and Sally Hawkins plays Oliver's mother exactly as i imagine one of my friend's mum would be like. Paddy Considine turns up as a spiritualist and as much as I love him in the capacity that he had the capacity to be that amazing Best of British actor, he goes too broad in this.
In hindsight, i would have guessed Ayode would have tried to make something more ambitious for his first feature, i mean Darkplace is a fairly elaborate concept (a faux doc/tv show based on the writing of a faux horror author) but maybe that's where a lot of guys out of tv or music videos (Ayode being a student of both) fall down. Maybe this was the best way to start his features career before he makes the Marenghi film of my dreams. (It'll never happen but a boy can dream.)
With Submarine, you're watching someone not really challenging himself... technically. I can't say i've ever seen him work so extensively on location or with proper actors and i guess none of his writing hitherto had been this precociousness; maybe that's what the exercise of Submarine was.
In any case he delivers on the promise of a beautifully-shot melancholy teen comedy set in Swansea (or Port Talbot) of all places... but I had full confidence he would; at no point did him making this seem like it would be a stretch for the kid. I mean Kaufmanesque is an Adjective that has been the noise around a lot of people especially Charlie Kaufmanesque but that's what I expect of Richard Ayode at this point but I take comfort in the fact with the success of Submarine under his belf, he'll come back with something far more experimental...

I watched Submarine (2010) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with The Virginity Hit (2010)...