Submarine

Directed by Richard Ayoade

(R)

***

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“Submarine is an exhilarating surprise,” said David Denby in The New Yorker. British writer-director Richard Ayoade, primarily known as a comic actor, has made a debut feature that’s “very witty, with a persistent lyrical flow.” The film tackles the familiar theme of innocence lost, as a hyper-self-conscious teenager (Craig Roberts) desperately works to lose his virginity while also taking an inappropriate interest in the sex lives of his parents, whose marriage is crumbling. One way Ayoade keeps this played-out theme fresh is by “getting actors to home in on the subtly excruciating,” said Jonathan Romney in the London Independent. Sally Hawkins, as Roberts’s mother, “is a masterclass in cringing middle-class repression,” and Noah Taylor delivers an “intensely weird” performance as her depressed husband. But what really makes the movie compelling is Ayoade’s playful approach to film craft, said Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. Submarine is not just packed with clever references to the French New Wave; it has “so much intrinsically cinematic verve” that it “must be experienced to be fully appreciated.”