Reviews
The Sunday Times
Cosmo Lansdesman
“I know the coming-of-age saga has been done so many times, nobody wants another tale about a tormented, sex-mad teenager, mixing the physically gross and the emotionally gooey. But this is different. Honest. Ayoade has taken the DNA of the coming-of-age tale and created something fresh and very funny.”
20/03/2011
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Time Out
Dave Calhoun
“...a spirited and warm film debut...”
17/03/2011
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The Times
Kate Muir
“...a droll, accomplished teenage drama that, as you might expect, celebrates extreme nerdiness. ”
18/03/2011
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Total Film
Ellen E Smith
“Smart and sly, funny and fourth-wall-breaking… but above all, an excruciatingly accurate coming-of-ager. On this evidence, Ayoade could be Britain’s answer to Wes Anderson.”
04/03/2011
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Empire Magazine
Dan Jolin
“Submarine is, simply, a joy. A joy jostled by the comedy of discomfort, sure, but like early Wes Anderson (a comparison that no doubt makes Ayoade squirm, but his film bears it well), its quirkier and darker tendencies are leavened by the warmth and likability of his characters...”
19/03/2011
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The Financial Times
Nigel Andrews
“Think Adrian Mole; cross him with Holden Caulfield; add a graft of young Woody Allen... In short: adolescent business as usual. But there is a dour intentness, often very funny, about Oliver’s dramatising diary skills (“a routine search of my parents’ bedroom . . . ”). And for an hour Ayoade, a comedian in his alternative career, mixes zany visual inventiveness and deadpan-perfect tonal holding patterns. Does the story go on too long? Just a bit.”
16/03/2011
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The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
“For sheer technique, Ayoade can hardly be faulted, though introducing characters in freezeframe/voiceover is getting to be a cliche. His film is shaped with flair, coolly allowing us to enjoy its unrealities and to savour the suspicion that a thirtysomething's sophistication and cinephilia have been sneakily backdated into a teenager's life to offset his emotional vulnerability: a protective nostalgia.”
17/03/2011
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The Independent on Sunday
Jonathan Romney
“What really distinguishes the film is Ayoade's exuberance as a film-maker. He's unashamedly a buff, a New Wave-besotted Francophile who can't resist making any and every in-joke that occurs to him. The result could have been painful, if not for Submarine's grace and perfectionism.”
20/03/2011
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The Observer
Philip French
“It's a stylish, touching, overly cute film, much influenced by the French New Wave, though capable of nodding towards Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now.”
20/03/2011
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The Independent
Anthony Quinn
“I'm all for a young British film-maker trying to subvert the stock traditions of boy-meets-girl, and Ayoade is clearly unafraid of experiment. But I would have traded all of its new wave dottiness and knowing whimsicality for a few spontaneous laughs.”
18/03/2011
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The Daily Mail
Chris Tookey
“Because Submarine seems geared more towards middle-aged film critics than real teenagers and fails to deliver fully on its comic potential, it probably won’t be a mainstream hit; but it will deserve a cult following as an artier, British equivalent to 500 Days Of Summer — an eccentric romcom with an original edge.”
18/03/2011
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The New Statesman
Ryan Gilbey
“There isn't enough material here for a full-length feature film. Ayoade has done inventive work directing music promos and TV comedy. In Submarine, his first film, his judgement isn't always sound. The tone keeps lapsing into tweeness; it is telling that while Oliver contemplates poisoning Jordana's dog, he doesn't go through with the plan as he does in the book...”
17/03/2011
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The Daily Telegraph
Sukhdev Sandhu
“Submarine is so poised, so studded with good things (Hawkins and Considine are both consistently giggle-inducing), that it may be churlish to pick holes in it. But it’s exactly because Ayoade is such an obvious cinephile, and is so talented, that it’s important to insist that filmmaking this self-consciously stylised and citational will always lack the emotional impact that its director secretly and belatedly craves.”
18/03/2011
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