Submarine [Sundance '11]

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Director: Richard Ayoade
Writers: Richard Ayoade (screenplay), Joe Dunthorne (novel)

Synopsis: Based on the Curtis Brown Prize-winning novel by Joe Dunthorne, this dark indie comedy is about a 15-year-old boy with two objectives: To lose his virginity before his next birthday, and to stop his mother from leaving his father for her dance teacher.

Buzz:

"Richard Ayoade's Submarine is the kind of film I hope to discover at film festivals and share with friends.  It is a coming of age story which is equal parts Rushmore, Election and Squid and the Whale.  Ayoade has an incredible command of tone, character and cinematic grammar — I can't believe this is his first movie." - SlashFilm

"It's the reason I go to film festivals. I could anticipate loving Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan or Danny Boyle's 127 Hours, but it is a special moment when you discover a gem. Richard Ayoade's Submarine is just that. It's a coming-of-age tale that is full of wit and bursting with life in every scene." - The FilmStage

"Sunday night's world premiere of "Submarine" -- writer-director Richard Ayoade's enchanting adaptation of the novel by Joe Dunthorne --  marked, for me, the first real introduction of a potentially major new talent at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. " - LATimes

Plus it was directed by Dean Lerner.

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Toronto 2010: 'Submarine' rises
Source: LATimes

Sunday night's world premiere of "Submarine" -- writer-director Richard Ayoade's enchanting adaptation of the novel by Joe Dunthorne --  marked, for me, the first real introduction of a potentially major new talent at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. Many people are already aware of Ayoade's skills as a director and performer on British television shows like "The IT Crowd" and his work directing music videos for the likes of Vampire Weekend. Regardless, "Submarine" is just the kind of discovery one comes to Toronto for -- a moody, melancholy teen film that feels both timeless and up-to-the-minute fresh.

With executive producer Ben Stiller making the initial introduction, the premiere also turned out to be one of the festival's funniest events so far. "This reminds me of when we brought 'Dodgeball' to Venice," Stiller cracked as he first took the podium.

"I don't want to be one of those people who tells you how great the movie is before it's out," Stiller said. "I had that happen to me recently with 'Piranha 3D,' which was a letdown."

Calling Ayoade an "annoyingly talented man," Stiller brought the director onstage by saying, "I don't want to jump the gun, but after the movie my producing partner Stuart Cornfeld will be in the men's room in a position to receive any and all offers."

Coming onstage, Ayoade was tall and lanky with a frizzy halo of hair adding to his height, looking nerdy-hip in thick, dark-framed glasses and clothes that verged on ill-fittingly tight. Parrying Stiller's wit, he added, "My aim obviously was to follow the funniest man in the world."

In a dry deadpan, with sentences full of twisting, uproarious asides, Ayoade started reeling off a few thank-yous, which he said was difficult given "the awful, egotistical maelstrom of self-doubt and worry" he was experiencing, while adding "also I have a very sarcastic-sounding, insincere voice."

"I've heard it's great here, it might not be good, personally. Who knows? This could be bad. So this is such a great festival, everyone's so nice, it's really good. So it might be like going out with someone who is nice for a bit and then hurts you."

Before starting the screening, Ayoade brought out the two young stars of the film, Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige, as well as Sally Hawkins.

Opening with white credits against a screen of primary blue, in a typeface reminiscent of '60s-era Godard films, right from the start the movie establishes an oddball mixture of sincerity, self-consciousness and teen-angst moodiness. Set in a small town in Wales, the film follows a young man named Oliver Tate. In the lead role, Craig Roberts pulls off a performance that seems a combination of Bud Cort in "Harold and Maude" and Damian from "The Omen." The kid is strange. And yet somehow, strangely, he is also endearing, a young man trying to come to terms with a world he is learning can be senseless and confusing. The net result is a new twist on the teen film, or as Oliver says at one point, "I don't know if I've come of age, but I'm certainly older now."

The film features songs written by Alex Turner from the band Arctic Monkeys, for whom Ayoade has directed music videos. It is another small touch that Ayoade gets just right, in that whenever a song comes up, rather than some vintage pop hit or deep-cut obscurity, it is rather a new song. The series of plaintive ballads written by Turner help not only the film's strategy of feeling somehow out-of-time, but also in avoiding some of the obvious moves of Wes Anderson-inspired preciousness that often sink young filmmakers.

Ayoade tells the story with a dazzling freedom of style, in which anything seems possible. For a sequence in which Oliver claims he has already transformed his romance into "the Super-8 footage of memory," there is, sure enough, a mini-home movie titled "Two Weeks of Lovemaking." Ayoade also sometimes pushes his editing rhythms to capture the rush and thrill of young love, amplifying the adolescent sense of excitement and anxiety from something as simple as brushing sleeves in the hallway with a potential crush.

And while it is Roberts and Paige, as Oliver's mean-spirited love interest, who most carry the story -- the sequence of their first evening of seduction is at once hilariously awkward yet tender and heartwarming -- the adults in the film do much to define its parameters. Noah Taylor and Hawkins as Oliver's parents and Paddy Considine as their new neighbor put into relief just what the mysteries of the adult world may one day turn Oliver into.

Following the screening, the director and cast came out for a Q&A. The very first questioner also presented Ayoade with a small gift, to which he responded, "Could all the questions be like that, just gifts?"

Ayoade also acknowledged the influence of the film "Les Cousins" by Frenchman Claude Chabrol, the word of whose passing had spread through the festival on Sunday.

"It was like 'The Exorcist,' this film," Ayoade added, noting that besides Chabrol,  Eric Rohmer and J.D. Salinger had also passed away during production. "We killed all the greats."

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Way too excited to see this.  Mostly just because of Richard Ayoade, but Dark Place was pitch perfect and Man to Man with Dean Learner was perfect in its own unique way as well.

[squints]

does anyone watch the IT crowd?

[brockly]

does anyone watch the IT crowd?

i couldn't get through the first season. i thought it was awful and i was shocked at how unfunny Richard Ayoade was in it because Darkplace is one of my favourite shows. the fact that he's written and directed this makes me very excited.

[squints]

does anyone watch the IT crowd?

i couldn't get through the first season. i thought it was awful and i was shocked at how unfunny Richard Ayoade was in it because Darkplace is one of my favourite shows. the fact that he's written and directed this makes me very excited.

seriously the first season blows..i struggled through it because i knew matt berry showed up eventually...you should check out the middle of season 2 and all of season 3..it gets pretty funny. not darkplace good but pretty silly and fun.

[brockly]

seriously the first season blows..i struggled through it because i knew matt berry showed up eventually...you should check out the middle of season 2 and all of season 3..it gets pretty funny. not darkplace good but pretty silly and fun.

will do, thanks for the tip.

[Stefen]

^bromance.

[matt35mm]

^bromance.

Gives a whole new meaning to "thanks for the tip."

[picolas]

richard ayoade was one of my favourite people alive before i saw this film and now, more so. it's easy for me to say i adored the first half because it's just really exciting and funny and brilliant. the sheer amount of fun he's having as a filmmaker is contagious. the second half is harder to describe... not because it's bad or anything like that. i'm just not sure what i think right now. but it was the best film i saw at tiff.

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Trailer: http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/watch_first_trailer_for_richard_ayoades_much-buzzed_about_submarine/

[Pubrick]

nice colour scheme.

good for him.

now that there's something legitimate to praise about the guy ppl can stop overrating the IT crowd..

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my Playlist review:

One of the best films at this year's Sundance Film Festival was one that actually had its debut at last year's TIFF. Richard Ayoade's "Submarine" is a remarkably assured debut filled with dry humor, visual wit and great performances. Adapted by Ayoade from a 2008 novel by Joe Dunthorne, the film follows 15 year old Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts), a somewhat delusional teenager who believes himself to be a literary genius, (he reads Nietzsche and searches the dictionary for new words), but in actuality is a social outcast who gets bullied at school and doesn't know how to talk to girls. Oliver develops a crush on classmate Jordana (Yasmin Paige), an emotionally guarded pyromaniac, who initially agrees to go out with him only to make her ex-boyfriend jealous.

Much of the humor in the film arises from the disparity between how Oliver views himself and how the world views him. He daydreams about how devastated his fellow classmates and family would be if he died, which most angst-ridden teenagers have probably done at some point. In an attempt to lose his virginity, Oliver tries to romance Jordana, (boxed wine, lit candles and heart shaped balloons around his parents' bedroom) but ends up coming off more like a serial killer. "To us, and a wonderful evening of love-making," he toasts sincerely. It may sound like a series of quirks but Roberts is great in the role, perfectly nailing the character's obliviousness and adolescent yearning. Paige plays Jordana throughout the first half of the film with a perpetual smirk but eventually reveals a more vulnerable character underneath.

Structured like a novel, the episodic film is split into three chapters sandwiched between a Prologue and an Epilogue. This is no mere cute storytelling device (à la Quentin Tarantino or Wes Anderson), the middle chapter of the film shifts its focus from Oliver and Jordana to the crumbling marriage of Oliver's parents. The film loses some of its comic momentum during this section but this is where its heart is revealed. When Oliver falls head over heels for Jordana, his father (Noah Taylor) offers him a mixtape of love songs but adds that he's "included some breakup songs towards the end. Just in case things don't work out." His mother (Sally Hawkins), bored with their marriage, starts seeing New Age life coach and former flame Graham (Paddy Constantine) and Oliver tries to stop them to keep his parents together.

It's hard to believe this is Ayoade's first feature but he has been racking up credits behind the camera for years, as director of the hilarious cult series "Garth Marenghi's Darkplace" as well as music videos for Vampire Weekend and Yeah Yeah Yeahs among others. But like many debut films, it wears its influences on its sleeve. For many, the similarities to Wes Anderson's "Rushmore" will be impossible to overlook but it's a shame to be forced to compare the two. Both films feature daydreaming teenage protagonists who believe themselves to be a lot cleverer than they really are, both hopelessly in love. Unfortunately the similarities don't end there and a few shots seem to be lifted directly from Anderson's films (whether intentionally or not).

Thankfully Ayoade's cinematic touchstones are far broader and "Submarine" seems to be rooted at least as much in the European films of the 1960s. Using handheld cameras, natural light and some amazing jump cuts gives the film a vibrant energy and visual style that recall the French New Wave. Occasionally the characters are centered in the frame, but more often they're much less restricted than the ones in Anderson's rigid compositions. The film is set in Wales in the 1980s though it took this writer almost an hour to realize it was a period piece and not just set in a quirky Anderson-ian present day. The Welsh suburbs provide a beautiful backdrop for the film with several scenes taking place on the overcast beach nearby. Meeting under the train tracks takes on a Fellini-esque dreamlike quality with only a gust of wind on the soundtrack.

The score by Andrew Hewitt, who also scored 'Darkplace,' features dramatic string arrangements to underscore Oliver's melodramatics. The film also features some mostly acoustic songs by Arctic Monkeys singer Alex Turner, which break from the film's period setting but provide a nice emotional voice for the characters, even if it doesn't make logical sense. (It's doubtful his dad would have given him a mixtape with Turner's songs on it, especially since Turner hadn't been born yet, but it works in the universe of the film.)

Oliver is repeatedly told throughout the film that "none of this will matter when he is 38." But the film, told strictly from his point of view, takes his problems seriously. To a teenager, each crush is the great love of your life and "Submarine" plays these moments sincerely, wringing laughter and emotion in nearly equal measure. Ayoade is a natural storyteller and the film is a huge leap artistically from his much sillier, (though still brilliantly funny), TV series. Though comparisons to other films are unavoidable, that shouldn't diminish the creativity on display here much. Hopefully Ayoade can continue to grow as a filmmaker and before too long his peers will be the ones being compared to him. [B-]

[samsong]

new wave greatest hits + indie family dramedy = good?  does not compute.

[Pwaybloe]

The link on the previous page seems to have the video removed.  Here is one (though I'm not sure if it's the same) on youtube: