In “Submarine,” the situation is dire, ominous and about six miles deep. We are talking about adolescence.
Oliver Tate is 15 and needs a girlfriend. And not just any girl: It must be Jordana Bevan, the girl with the chubby cheeks and the sarcastic eyes.
The excruciating and the hilarious mingle nearly to perfection in this marvelously visualized and deeply felt British film, set in a tragical wonderland called Wales, where the sky is industrial gray and you can almost smell the low tide.
Oliver (a tortured and droll Craig Roberts) is an unreliable narrator who tells us, “In many ways I prefer my own company,” and reads the dictionary as a private affectation. Also, he had a phase involving French crooners.
Of a best friend who stayed cool when poked in the back with compasses, Oliver says, “His stoicism reminded me of the brave men who died in the First World War.” That unbearable gravity is what defines teenhood and makes it so woefully funny. Oliver pictures how his mates would react to his death, and the level of mourning makes the obsequies for Princess Diana look restrained. But who among us didn’t let his self-importance roam so wide? Like a Welsh version of the self-styled genius in “Rushmore,” Oliver may yet earn the right to call himself extraordinary. But that doesn’t make his solipsism any less funny.
When Oliver, thanks to an accidental instance of coolness, finds himself attracting Jordana (Yasmin Paige, who is a little too intimidating to be adorable) to a kiss under a train trestle, the rush of sound and the ignition of awe are so disorienting, it’s as if you’re in Oliver’s boots. “We are now as one,” he rules.
Soon they are sharing regular dates — gazing upon factory lights, sitting in an abandoned bathtub, spitting and engaging in light arson. But he fears his parents may break up due to his mother’s (Sally Hawkins) crush on a neighbor, a mulleted motivational speaker who knows secret ninja sex techniques. That Jordana’s mother has a brain tumor doesn’t quite capture his fancy. There are too many distractions at home, where Dad (Noah Taylor) is starting to resemble a crumpled sock. But Oliver reads that losing a pet may help acquaint children with death. Naturally he considers the best thing for Jordana would be to get some rat poison for her dog.
An easy way to cheat, if you don’t have a movie, is to simply buy a great soundtrack. Here, though, the gorgeous ache of the original songs by Alex Turner (of the Arctic Monkeys) is an ideal fit. It’s as if Oliver has an internal Greek chorus as he gradually submerges, trapped under the watery weight of his own crushing choices. At times things work out despite himself — as when he dons a tie, obtains a box of wine and decorates a bedroom with balloons for his intended loss of virginity. At other times, he has to make a list of reasons not to kill himself.
In adapting a novel by Joe Dunthorne, writer-director Richard Ayoade and cinematographer Erik Alexander Wilson use rinsed-out colors as sunspots intrude into the frame, as if in a 1960s French film. Together with a retro décor that suggests any time in the past 40 years, they bring off a sense of a hazy and not altogether delightful past. It’s as if adult life is merely an adolescence hangover.