Submarine

A Welsh teenager (Craig Roberts) finds a girlfriend (Yasmin Paige) just as his parents (Noah Taylor, Sally Hawkins) seem to be drifting apart, his mother reigniting a youthful flame with a fatuous New Age guru (Paddy Considine). Writer-director Richard Ayoade (adapting Joe Dunthorne’s novel) serves up yet another rehash of The Catcher in the Rye (making the comparison explicit by having the young hero wave Salinger’s book in our faces; is Ayoade afraid his audience is as thick-witted as his protagonist?). But the movie is shallow as drama, sour and mirthless as comedy, trying to show ironic detachment by having the actors stare with blank, enervated faces. The whole movie is grungy, dark and dreary, and Roberts’ character (like so many wannabe Holden Caulfields) is an annoying, self-absorbed little drip.