SUBMARINE (M.I.F.F.)

This was the first Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) movie of the season for me. Having been rejected for their film blog reviews project courtesy of a rather patronising email that misspelled the word 'calibre', I had considered not mentioning MIFF in this review. You might even say that I was a bit... ahem... 'MIFFed' about it!  Nonetheless, as you can see from my opening gambit here, I have opted to be the bigger man. Chalk one up for personal growth.

Submarine is the tale of  Oliver growing up in a small town in Wales, charting his forays into first love, and his attempts to scupper his mother’s plans to meet up with an old flame. Sounds like a barrel of laughs right? Well it is in fact extremely funny. Beautifully shot and very well made by The IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade (his first feature as a director), it successfully juggles both the comedic and serious tone of the film to get the right balance between humour and melodrama. Similar in a way to how Bunny and the Bull managed to be simultaneously side achingly funny yet also rather touching.

Submarine is narrated from the perspective of central character Oliver, oftentimes with his opinion that his life is a movie. This device had the potential to be a bit trite if mishandled, but this film is so well made and charming across the board that it succeeds triumphantly. Also, unless I am much mistaken, it is a pretty common adolescent fantasy to believe your life is actually a movie. But please all the psychiatrists who read this blog, feel free to correct me.*

The cast is excellent all round, with charisma and likeability in spades. Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige in the lead roles, turn in charming and hugely entertaining performances. Paddy Considine’s character verged on being a bit too silly, but got away with it by virtue of his great comedic turn and the colossal goodwill that this movie conjures.

Noah Taylor was superb. The perfect study of mild mannered melancholy. The sequence about his former job as an Open University TV presenter (“he was an uncomfortable screen presence”) had me bellowing with laughter. And Sally Hawkins was fantastic as Oliver's  highly strung mother, Jill.

I LOVED the shit out of this movie. Submarine is a fantastically enjoyable movie all round. This could quite conceivably be the film of the festival, if not the year, for me.

On the MIFF rating system I gave this film 5 stars out of 5.

IMDB: Submarine

* Incidentally I would imagine there are many psychiatrists who would use this blog in a professional capacity in order to study the long term effects of Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull induced trauma. How can a normal, well adjusted man in his early 30’s, 3 years after the fact, still suffer cold sweats, despondency and crippling Indiana Jones related nightmares? The only peace coming in those 2 to 3 seconds after one wakes up in the morning and having the firm conviction that the fourth movie was all a dream. It was another bad dream – Indiana Jones didn’t fight aliens; it was another bad dream – Indiana Jones didn’t survive a nuclear blast; it was another bad dream – they didn’t use Sean Connery’s IMDB headshot as a family portrait when discussing his death; it was another bad dream – Mutt didn’t swordfight a badly accented Cate Blanchett on top of a FUCKING CGI JEEP!. Excuse me, I need to go have a lie down.