THE REPRESENTATION OF AGE IN ‘SUBMARINE’

The whole fi lm has been dubbed ‘a Coming of Age’ fi lmOliver, as a character is portrayed as more mature than the

adults around him. For example his mother and father’s relationship, he’s the one who tries to fi x it.

Oliver says in the novel ‘My GCSEs are more important that my fi rst relationship’ this is something that is interesting due to the fact that this isn't the stereotypical attitude of most teenagers, they tend to be far more social than academic based

Jordana is also portrayed as a person who is older than their years, she is far more mature in the relationship.

Oliver is also an autodidact, he has a craving for learning and this is not something that teenagers tend to represented as.

ADOLESCENCE

The adults in this fi lm are conveyed in a vaguely irresponsible way, this is really highlight by the fact that Oliver thinks his mother and Graham are having an aff air.

His father, Lloyd is suff ering with depression, this is something that can aff ect not only the people around him but also the relationships he forms and maintains.

The only other male fi gure he has to look up to/ model himself on is Graham, the man that he suspects his mother is having an aff air with and is a ‘New-Age guru’. This is the direct opposite of what both his father and Oliver is.

The mother ‘Jill’ has potentially been diagnosed with a brain tumour, so the two people (his parents) that are supposed to be an example of maturity/r responsibility could be seen as weak or havening a weakness of some kind.

THE ADULTS

A quotation from a critic; "Funny, stylish, and ringing with adolescent truth, Submarine marks Richard Ayoade as a talent to watch.”

Critic Roger Ebert gave the fi lm 3/4 stars saying "Submarine isn't an insipid teen sex comedy. It fl aunts some stylistic devices, such as titles and sections and self-aware narration, but it doesn't try too hard to be desperately clever. It's a self-confi dent work for the fi rst-time director, Richard Ayoade, whose purpose I think is to capture that delicate moment in some adolescent lives when idealism and trust lead to tentative experiments. Because Craig Roberts and Yasmin Paige are enormously likable in their roles, they win our sympathy and make us realize that too many movies about younger teenagers are fi ltered through the sensibility of more weathered minds." [

CRITICS RESPONSES

Oliver heads home after getting his heart broken, on the way he sees Jill with Graham and assumes the worst. Filled with anger he breaks into Graham’s house, gets drunk and commits minor acts of vandalism. When Graham gets home, he fi nds Oliver and returns him home with minimal fuss. The next morning, Oliver awakes to see that both his parents aren't angry with him and are reconciling.

What I found interesting about this is that what the audience is led to believe is that the age roles in this fi lm are subverted, so the parents are essentially the children in the relationship and in the fact that Oliver gets drunk is a stark reminder that he is only 15 and is allowed to react in the way that he does, in all reality its how we expect a boy of that age to stereotypically react to the assumption that he made.

INTERESTING POINT