Submarine

Director: Richard Ayoade
Screenwriters: Richard Ayoade

Institute History

  • 2011 Sundance Film Festival

Description

First garnering attention as a comedian (notably The IT Crowd), Richard Ayoade turned his hand to directing music videos before embarking on Submarine, his extraordinarily funny first feature.
Meet Oliver Tate, a precocious 15-year-old whose worldview is exceedingly clever and largely delusional (he imagines the outpouring of grief that would spread through Wales if he died). Oliver carries a briefcase, doesn’t agree with everything Nietzsche said but concedes that he had some interesting points, peruses the dictionary for new words (fla•gi•tious, adj, wickedly shameful), and suspects his mother of having an affair with their New Age neighbor. But foremost on Oliver’s mind is finding a girlfriend. Enter Jordana Bevan.
Adapted from Joe Dunthorne's wry novel and bolstered by aesthetic wit, fabulous performances, and a clever score by Andrew Hewitt (with songs by Alex Turner), Submarine evokes the spontaneity and breezy cinematic cool of the French New Wave. Ayoade sidesteps coming-of-age clichés to explore a kid who’s too self-absorbed to realize that to know somebody, you first have to remove yourself from the center of the universe.

— John Nein

Screening Details

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