Down ‘Submarine’

In theaters today: J. Edgar

In theaters Friday: Immortals, Jack and Jill

New on DVD/Blu-ray: Atlas Shrugged, Cars 2, The Change-Up

Borrowing influences from the French New Wave and more modern touchstones like Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale, and Miguel Arteta’s Youth in Revolt, Submarine is the long-awaited English response, a dark young adult twist on Charlie Brown, an autumnal, impossibly somber, self-reflective and wistful look at youth drowning in the depths of crises both real and perceived. This dry-humored coming-of-age drama is available now on DVD.

Based on the recent novel by 29-year-old author Joe Dunthorne and directed by actor and first time feature film director Richard Ayoade, Submarine follows every fleeting hope, wide-eyed dream, adventurer’s jaunt and arsonist whim of 15-year-old Oliver Tate, a bookish loner and amateur filmmaker obsessed with righting the sinking ship that is his parent’s marriage and wooing his broodingly beautiful classmate, Jordana. Neither goes according to plan when his mother’s ex, now reborn as a mystical self-help guru, moves in next door, and Jordana’s feelings toward him shift when her mother is diagnosed with cancer.

Oliver is a creative, introverted young man of extremes. He doesn’t just want his depressive parents happy with each other, he types love letters to his mother from his father and confronts her about the infrequency of their love making. He already sees memories with Jordana in Super 8 footage-style set to ridiculously romantic music. He doesn’t want a girlfriend. He wants a heroic love affair worthy of a Hollywood epic.

While Arctic Monkey’s frontman Alex Turner’s original soundtrack recalls the sweet melodies of Paul Simon and Donovan, Ayoade’s direction is confident and stylistically minimal, a nice contrast to Oliver’s frequent flights of fantasy. Ayoade is a filmmaker to watch. Buoyed by a sharp-eyed indie aesthetic that, with a tiny budget, makes the very best of the industrial parks, lush rock-walled gardens and crisp ocean fronts of small town Wales, Submarine’s internal and external focus is on brushing past the mistakes, misunderstandings and calamities of life to reach the beating heart of another human being, to truly understand someone else. It’s a quest for sonar, and young Oliver Tate is willing to dive down deep to find it.