Submarine (2011)
Average Rating: 7.3/10
Reviews Counted: 139
Fresh: 121 | Rotten: 18
Funny, stylish, and ringing with adolescent truth, Submarine marks Richard Ayoade as a talent to watch.
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Critic Reviews: 34
Fresh: 28 | Rotten: 6
Funny, stylish, and ringing with adolescent truth, Submarine marks Richard Ayoade as a talent to watch.
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Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 21,732
My Rating
Movie Info
Fifteen-year-old Oliver Tate has two big ambitions: to save his parents' marriage via carefully plotted intervention and to lose his virginity before his next birthday. Worried that his mom is having an affair with New Age weirdo Graham, Oliver monitors his parents' sex life by charting the dimmer switch in their bedroom. He also forges suggestive love letters from his mom to dad. Meanwhile, Oliver attempts to woo his classmate, Jordana, a self-professed pyromaniac who supervises his journal
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Cast
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Craig Roberts
Oliver Tate -
Yasmin Paige
Jordana Bevan -
Sally Hawkins
Jill Tate -
Paddy Considine
Graham Purvis -
Noah Taylor
Lloyd Tate -
Darren Evans
Chips -
Steffan Rhodri
Mr. Davey -
Osian Cai Dulais
Mark Pritchard -
Lily McCann
Zoe Preece -
Otis Lloyd
Keiron -
Elinor Crawley
Abby Smuts -
Gemma Chan
Kim-Lin -
Melanie Walters
Jude Bevan -
Sion Tudor Owen
Brynn Bevan -
Adrienne O'Sullivan
Jackie -
Jonny Wier
Malcolm -
Lydia Fox
Miss Dutton -
Lynne Hunter
Gene -
Claire Cage
News Reporter -
Edwin Ashcroft
Dafydd -
Andrew Phillips
Rhydian Bird -
James Alexander Hill
School Boy -
Rikki Hall
School Boy -
Tom Ryan
School Boy -
James Jones
School Boy -
Sophy Brady-Halligan
The Watkins Twin, Watki... -
Tanya Brady-Halligan
The Watkins Twin, Watki... -
Sarah Pasquali
Woman Who Looks Nothing...
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Submarine Trailer & Photos
All Critics (141) | Top Critics (34) | Fresh (122) | Rotten (18) | DVD (4)
That rare teen comedy where the kids aren't gorgeous, the hero isn't heroic and the object of desire has a lot of reasons why she isn't necessarily desirable.
Top CriticThe result is a small, delicate comedy that depends on a continuity of tone that it pulls off. Oliver may not live happily ever after; but he manages to live happily enough here, and that's just fine.
An exercise in briny Welsh Weltzschmerz that tracks the inner and outer worlds of a confused teenage boy.
"Submarine'' has its own specific miseries and darkly funny vibe. It makes quirkiness briefly seem like a good thing again.
For an unreliable narrator, Oliver's story is reliably entertaining.
The main problem with Submarine is that Oliver is not a likable protagonist.
That rare teen comedy where the kids aren't gorgeous, the hero isn't heroic and the object of desire has a lot of reasons why she isn't necessarily desirable.
It's funny, sad, touching and charming; a film that's in turns joyously ridiculous yet on occasion hits devastatingly close to home.
Though the subject matter is nothing new, every aspect of the film thrums with quality.
I look forward to more from director Richard Ayoade.
It's an intriguing low-key film that makes you think Holden Caulfield.
A cool, well-directed, if somewhat sterile and self-consciously quirky affair about teen awkwardness, virginity, infidelity and dead-end marriages.
Submarine successfully combines the quirky and the sweet, in this representation of adolescence in all of its messy, overdramatic, and bumbling glory.
Writer/director Richard Ayoade, who has directed some music videos, displays a hand behind the camera that is not only sure but also capable of unique feeling and wit.
All of this makes it sound as if Ayoade is trying much too hard but the gentleness of his touch succeeds in keeping pretentiousness safely out of the picture.
See it and let Oliver Tate remind you of the teenager you once were, or knew.
It just hits an eccentric, wry gorgeous note.
A uniquely strange, yet totally accessible comic sensibility, fused by a brilliant script to a brace of pitch-perfect performances seals the deal.
An idiosyncratic tone, one that is both funny and affecting, is far easier to sparingly strike than it is too maintain for the length of a feature. To his not inconsiderable credit, Richard Ayoade keeps a steady, if stylised, hand all the way through.
A quirky and stylistically idiosyncratic tale of an angst ridden teenager trying to win the heart of a girl and save his parents' marriage. With everyone in deadpan mode its funny but emotionally uninspiring.
There have been any number of movies about the problems faced by teenagers when they fall in and out of love, but the team behind Submarine seem to have got it all just right.
It's too concerned with style to leave a lasting impression, yet it's also warming and witty enough to pass by without doing any harm.
Mining similar narrative and stylistic territory to Wes Anderson, this weird and wonderful comedy drama still feels brilliantly unique.
Ayoade doesn't ape [Wes] Anderson, but he achieves similar magic, delivering a sad, funny little film that takes no shame in its visual influences.
Audience Reviews for Submarine
Super Reviewer
When 'Amelie' did it, it felt just right, when 'Submarine' does it it becomes to much. The premise is still intersting and at it's core is executed well (the voiceover works) but overall I can't help but feel like it's an honest story with a load of rubbish on top.
Super Reviewer
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- Oliver Tate: Bound to be disappointing? So why wait?
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- Oliver Tate: Sorry, I thought you were someone else.
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- Oliver Tate: You're too good for me, you're too good for anyone.
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- Oliver Tate: I don't quite know what I am yet. I've tried flipping coins, listening exclusively to french crooners, I've even had a brief hat phase but nothing stuck.
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- Oliver Tate: My mother is worried I have mental problems.
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- Lloyd Tate: It's a kettle.
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Latest News on Submarine
November 29, 2011:
Tony Scott Boards Narco SubHe's directing a "drug-centric action thriller" from screenwriter Davis Guggenheim ("Safe House").
June 2, 2011:
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June 1, 2011:
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"A comedy that doesn't let principles stand in the way of progress."
Submarine is a great little coming of age story that honestly tells a tale of adolescent love and teenage problems. This is a film that isn't for everyone. It's a slow and contemplative movie that gets its laughs from the awkwardness of the protagonist who is entering his first relationship and doesn't really know how to go about it. The movie is refreshing in how it handles Oliver's life and how it presents him.
Oliver Tate is a fifteen year old boy living in Wales with his mother and father. At the start of the film, he explains that his parents haven't had sex in 7 months and that he monitors them and just about everything they do. He also does routine room checks of his parents room. Oliver also has another interest, and her name is Jordana. Soon the two start dating and eventually they even take it to the next step. The relationship is handled rather well on screen, and it seems like a legit 15 year old relationship. Oliver's world starts changing when his mother starts spending a lot of time with a guy she had a past with. Now, he needs to save his parents relationship and hopefully his own.
This movie is beautifully made, with wonderful cinematography and fitting music. There's also a wonderfulness to the dialogue. It seems so honest and real. There's no big speeches about how much Oliver loves Jordana; only real words that a real 15 year old would speak. I appreciate the movie on a whole for being one of the few films that truly gets the teenage relationship factor.
Submarine is a really worthwhile movie, and one that I would recommend as long as you like independent, sort of quirky, and quiet movies. I think I would like the movie much more after another viewing in the future, but as of now, I solidly like it. I haven't fallen in love with it yet, but I can definitely see that happening if I spend some more time with it.