Watching interviews with Richard Ayoade is interminable. It's not that he's not funny, in fact some of the surreal asides he goes on are hilarious, but I just can't watch another interviewer stare blankly as he jokes about Ben Stiller being his driver. Part of the problem, admittedly, is the fact that the man only speaks in a single register which, unfortunately, appears to be so quiet that people actually think Ayoade is pronounced "Eye, oh, woddi," (which anyone whose looked at the spelling would find ridiculous). Somehow Ayoade manages to charm them anyway which is fortunate, because Submarine, on first viewing, seems to be the single greatest document of British teen-age ever to be displayed on a white sheet at my local nickelodeon.
Craig Roberts, from Tracey Beaker fame (I assume), plays Oliver Tate who's character can be summed up in the seemingly non judgmental opening lines:
"Most people think of themselves as individuals, that there's no one on the planet like them. This thought motivates them to get out of bed, eat food, and walk around like nothings wrong. My name is Oliver Tate."
Tate, who's matter of fact narration guides us through the film, appears to base his life on the idea that he is an individual case. He rationalities his very worst actions away on the basis that he can; His fifteen year old intellect allows him too. If he were any younger, he would have been unable to rationalise the shoving a girl into a pond to impress a second girl (Jordana played excellently by Yasmin Paige) and would have just felt bad. Any older and he would have surely been struck by the miserable reality that other people are the same as him and therefore probably don't enjoy being pushed into a fucking pond.
It's this fifteen year old mentality that has been brilliant captured in submarine, and it is such an achievement because it has been attempted so many times before. Never has it been done with such astounding insight. While the art direction is beautiful, in a small town in wales sort of way, and the performances are great throughout it is the identification one feels for Oliver that is the real leap forward. That and the skillful use of the word "gay," in the script, which, while homophobic, is completely and uncontestably accurate.
