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Submarine

SUBMARINE directed by Richard Ayoade, screenplay by Ayoade based on the novel by Joe Dunthorne, with Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige, Noah Taylor, Sally Hawkins and Paddy Considine. An Alliance Films release. 94 minutes. Opens Friday (June 10). See listing Rating: NNN


Richard Ayoade – a British comic and filmmaker best known here for his role in The IT Crowd – makes his feature debut with this meticulously constructed but dramatically uneven coming-of-age tale about a maladjusted teenager (Craig Roberts) bent on bedding a surly schoolmate (Yasmin Page) and keeping his mother (Sally Hawkins) from leaving his father (Noah Taylor) for a seedy mentalist (Paddy Considine).

Adapting Joe Dunthorne’s novel, Ayoade juggles laughs and poignancy very well, and individual scenes work brilliantly – particularly those involving Roberts’s awkward time at school – but the momentum flags midway through, when the film expands its scope to pack in a few more supporting characters.

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