Submarine

Aroview: Actor Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd) proves adept behind the camera with this imaginative adaptation of Joe Dunthorne’s novel about precocious 15-year-old Welshman caught in the thick of first love while his parents’ relationship sours.

Bittersweet and evocative, the music, cinematography, design and editing choices form a cohesive, affecting portrait that cuts to the heart of adolescent yearning and romantic entanglement. Wryly comic, but never too cute, Ayoade’s precocious talent makes the subjective rites-of-passage material seem fresh, aided by the dead-on casting of newcomer Craig Roberts in the central role.

“Has a uniquely strange, yet totally accessible comic sensibility, fused by a brilliant script to a brace of pitch-perfect performances.” ~LEIGH PAATSCH, HERALD SUN