Submarine: A Very British Teen Movie

If there is one thing that stays with you more than anything you experience during your formative teenage years, it’s how many times and in what ways that you were embarrassed at school. I got off lucky as being the fairly average Joe that attracted neither popularity nor regular ridicule, although it was quite awkward when I accidentally entered the girls changing room, I was somewhat humiliated when I walked into a door in front of a crowd of people, and totally mortified after I got so drunk at a party that I had to be picked up by my infuriated father. Submarine, a debut by IT Crowd actor Richard Ayaode, is an attempt to capture the importance of these teen memories against the backdrop of picturesque Swansea.

Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) has two vitally important goals in his life: first, lose his virginity before his 16^th birthday, hopefully to Jordana Bevan, a mischievous and straight talking girl who is only interested in using Oliver as an attempt to get back at a former boyfriend but becomes captivated by him when he defends her honour at the cost of a bloodied nose from said former boyfriend. His second goal is to prevent his mother Jill (Sally Hawkings) from having an affair with new age mystic Graham (Paddy Considine, complete with spiked hair and rat tails). Considering that Oliver’s dad is a docile and depression addled marine biologist called Lloyd (Noah Taylor) and that the married couple have not had sex in six months, we don’t fancy his chances. An arrogant teen who reads Nietsche and in need of a dose of reality, Oliver thinks he can solve the families problems. That’s the premise.

What makes Submarine such an engrossing spectacle and a great story is that it is incredibly focused, taking its premise of a teenager trying to solve adult problems and framing everything from the characters, the settings and the narrative style around it. Good filmmakers are perfectionists; they constantly tinker with their screenplays until every aspect of it fits the premise and the theme of the film. If the story is about death, then every character would have some kind of relationship with it, every scene would say something about death. Any scene that fails to acknowledge death, that was simply there because it pleased the writer and thought it was his best work, doesn’t wash. You have to kill your darlings if it isn’t right for your film.

In the case of Submarine, it’s a film that knows exactly what it is about: Teenagers.  As comedian Alan Davies put it: one day it’s the worst day of your life because your girlfriend dumps you, then the next day you find a really cool band and everything is amazing again. Being a teenager is a war zone of hormones and change, and those few years spent in school feel like life or death moments. Teenagers believe they are misunderstood by their parents, and are confident that they know all the answers. Because Submarine is a film about being a teenager, and specifically about being a teenager who thinks he knows everything, every aspect of the filmmaking process complements.

Oliver Tate speaks to the audience from the get go, filling the story with a narration that sounds half film noir, half film of his life delivered in his own dead pan way. As he gives a note to a student, he describes how it would unfold: “Sometimes I wish there was a film crew following my every move, I imagine the camera craning up as I walk away… but unless things improve, the biopic of my life will only have a budget of a zoom out.” In any other film, it would be flagged as pretentious and melodramatic, and that it certainly is. But Submarine is a film about a teenager who thinks he understands the world he inhabits, so his narration fits the premise.

While Oliver’s narration litters the film with his confused teenage ramblings, the film aptly unfolds as part love story and part detective film. Oliver tries to manage the relationship with Jordana, while stalking her mum and trying to prevent her from straying into the arms of Graham. Submarine’s premise asks what would happen if a child tries to be an adult and solve adult problems, and while American film Brick (2005) tried to tackle a similar premise as a teenage detective film taking the hallmarks of the film noir genre and shoe horning them directly into the high school, Submarine shows a bumbling teenage detective blinded by arrogance and led into failure. His attempts to give advice to his dad fall on deaf ears while his last ditch attempts to keep mum from straying are embarrassing. One scene is particularly cringe worthy as Oliver attempts to sneak a love note to his mum in his dad’s name.

Meanwhile, his striving to be the perfect boyfriend to Jordana unfolds in typical teenage style: horribly. Naive, romantic and socially inept, Oliver makes some sweet natured yet disastrous attempts to court his new girlfriend. When he finally sees his chance to lose his virginity though, he becomes so carried away by his efforts to make the night perfect that Jordana describes him as “a serial killer.” What’s ironic about his endeavor to be the perfect boyfriend is that when she does begin to open up to him and ask for him as an emotional support, he gets in way over his head and starts to panic.

All of this is set against a backdrop that is visually stunning as it’s a pleasing slice of deadpan humour, whilst always tying into that teenage theme resonating through the film. There are great dream sequences that exaggerate his feelings as well as big coloured cue cards separating each act. Accompanying string instruments deliver the sound of dread filling young Oliver as he nears the detective inspired third act, titled “show down”. Naturally, his final act of defiance is a childish and toothless display that once and for all exposes him as a teenage fraud.

Submarine is the perfect example of a film that has a distinct and unique voice. Its voice is a theme about being a teenager: a narrative that covers the two most important aspect of a teenager’s life, characters that fit the spectrum of the teenage experience, and a narration filled with dialogue of what a pretentious teenager thinks he sounds like. This is how writing should be, ruthless and focused, re-written and re-written until the voice of the screenplay is distinct and unique.