''Submarine'' is a 2010

coming-of-age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can be ...

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film written and directed by Richard Ayoade and starring

Craig Roberts Craig Haydn Roberts (born 21 January 1991) is a Welsh actor and director. He is best known for lead roles as Oliver Tate in the coming-of-age comedy-drama film ''Submarine'' (2010) and David Meyers in the series ''Red Oaks'' (2014–2017), and f ...

Yasmin Paige Yasmin, Yasmine, or Yasmina may refer to: People * Yasmin (given name), a feminine given name, and sometimes surname * Yasmin (musician) (born 1993), English singer, songwriter, and DJ * Yasmine (pornographic actress), Yasmine Lafitte, French ac ...

Noah Taylor Noah George Taylor (born 4 September 1969) is a British-born Australian actor. He is best known for his roles as teenage David Helfgott in '' Shine'', Locke in the HBO series ''Game of Thrones'', Darby Sabini in the BBC One series ''Peaky Bl ...

Paddy Considine Patrick George Considine (born 5 September 1973) is an English actor, director, and screenwriter. He frequently collaborates with filmmaker/director Shane Meadows. He has received two British Academy Film Awards, three Evening Standard Brit ...

and Sally Hawkins. It was adapted from the 2008 novel ''

Submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

'' by Joe Dunthorne, and is an international co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States. ''Submarine'' is Ayoade's directorial debut.

Plot

Oliver Tate (

) is an unpopular 15-year-old who is infatuated with classmate Jordana (

). When Jordana invites Oliver to meet secretly after school, she takes pictures of them kissing, hoping to make her ex-boyfriend jealous. He reacts by putting Oliver in a headlock and punching him at school whilst they are surrounded by other pupils. Jordana soon becomes Oliver's girlfriend and after a couple of weeks they have sex in his bedroom whilst his parents are out. At home, Oliver becomes concerned about his parents. His father, Lloyd (

), is depressed. New-age guru Graham (

), an ex-boyfriend of his mother, Jill ( Sally Hawkins), has moved in next door, and his flirtations rouse Oliver's suspicions. Oliver's relationship with Jordana grows, but he learns that her mother has a potentially fatal brain tumour. At an early Christmas dinner at Jordana's house, he witnesses her father break down. Unsettled, he decides that the Jordana he loves is at risk because the emotional events surrounding her will "make her gooey (sentimental) in the middle." He cuts off contact with her. Thinking that his mother and Graham are having an affair, Oliver attempts to repair his parents' relationship. While searching for his mother on the beach, he is stunned to see Jordana with another boy. Horrified, he heads home and on the way, he sees his mother with Graham and assumes the worst. Enraged, he breaks into Graham's house, gets drunk, and commits minor acts of vandalism. When Graham comes home, he finds Oliver but returns him home with minimal fuss. The next morning, Oliver awakes to see that both his parents aren't angry with him and are reconciling. Oliver remains distraught about losing Jordana; he is downhearted for weeks, until he sees her on the beach. Running towards her, he explains his actions and learns that Jordana has either broken up with her new boyfriend or never had one. Together, they walk several inches deep into the sea, smiling.

Cast

as Oliver Tate *

as Jordana Bevan * Sally Hawkins as Jill Tate *

as Lloyd Tate *

as Graham Purvis *

Gemma Chan Gemma Chan (born 29 November 1982) is an English actress. Born and raised in London, Chan attended the Newstead Wood School for Girls and studied law at Worcester College, Oxford before choosing to pursue a career in acting instead, enrolling at ...

as Kim-Lin *

Melanie Walters Melanie Walters (born 30 January 1962) is a Welsh actress who has worked frequently in television. She is best known for playing Gwen West in the BBC sitcom ''Gavin & Stacey'' and Emma, a vampire in the third series of '' Being Human''. Early ...

as Jude Bevan * Steffan Rhodri as Mr. Davey *

Ben Stiller Benjamin Edward Meara Stiller (born November 30, 1965) is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is the son of the comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. Stiller was a member of a group of comedic actors colloquially known ...

as Soap Opera Star (Uncredited)

Production

Casting

Michael Sheen Michael Christopher Sheen OBE (born 5 February 1969) is a Welsh actor, television producer and political activist. After training at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he worked mainly in theatre throughout the 1990s with stage rol ...

and '' X Factor'' contestant

Lucie Jones Lucie Bethan Jones (born 20 March 1991) is a Welsh singer, musical theatre actress, and model. Jones first came to prominence while competing on series 6 of ''The X Factor UK'' in 2009, where she finished eighth. She represented the United Ki ...

were originally cast in the film but dropped out due to other commitments.

Filming

The film was produced by Warp Films and

Film4 Productions Film4 Productions is a British film production company owned by Channel Four Television Corporation. The company has been responsible for backing many films made in the United Kingdom. The company's first production was '' Walter'', directed b ...

. Principal photography began on 26 October 2009 and filming finished in December 2009.

Soundtrack

Six original songs were written and performed by Alex Turner, the frontman of

Arctic Monkeys Arctic Monkeys are an English rock band formed in Sheffield in 2002. The group consists of Alex Turner (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards), Jamie Cook (guitar, keyboards), Nick O'Malley (bass guitar, backing vocals), and Matt Helders (drums, ...

. The soundtrack charted at 35 in the UK Album Chart. The original score was composed by

Andrew Hewitt Andrew Hewitt (born March 28th, 1976) is an English composer based in Los Angeles. Training Hewitt was classically trained from childhood as a pianist and tenor singer. He won music scholarships to the Westminster Abbey Choir, Uppingham School, ...

, long-time collaborator of Ayoade, recorded at Air Studios with The Composers Ensemble orchestra.

Release

The film premiered at the 35th Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010. Following a generally positive reception it was picked up by

The Weinstein Company The Weinstein Company (usually credited or abbreviated as TWC) was an American independent film studio, founded in New York City by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in March 2005. TWC was one of the largest mini-major film studios in North America pri ...

for a North American release. The film also played at the 54th London Film Festival in October 2010 and was played out of competition at the 27th Sundance Film Festival in January 2011. It was also screened along with 400 other films at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival the next month.

Critical reception

''Submarine'' received positive reviews from critics. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the film has a score of based on reviews from critics, with an average score of . The website's critics consensus: "Funny, stylish, and ringing with adolescent truth, ''Submarine'' marks Richard Ayoade as a talent to watch." At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which assigns a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 76 based on 37 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Critic

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

gave the film 3/4 stars saying "''Submarine'' isn't an insipid teen sex comedy. It flaunts some stylistic devices, such as titles and sections and self-aware narration, but it doesn't try too hard to be desperately clever. It's a self-confident work for the first-time director, Richard Ayoade, whose purpose I think is to capture that delicate moment in some adolescent lives when idealism and trust lead to tentative experiments. Because Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige are enormously likable in their roles, they win our sympathy and make us realize that too many movies about younger teenagers are filtered through the sensibility of more weathered minds."

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Submarine 2010 films 2010 romantic comedy-drama films 2010s coming-of-age comedy-drama films 2010s teen comedy-drama films 2010s teen romance films British coming-of-age comedy-drama films British romantic comedy-drama films British teen comedy-drama films British teen romance films Coming-of-age romance films English-language Welsh films Films about dysfunctional families Films about infidelity Films about marriage Films about virginity Films directed by Richard Ayoade Films set in 1997 Films set in Swansea Films shot in Swansea Films shot in Wales Film4 Productions films Red Hour Productions films 2010 directorial debut films Films scored by Andrew Hewitt 2010s English-language films 2010s British films