Charm a much under-rated quality in a film. Richard Ayoades directorial debut has it is buckets, and its actually very hard to pinpoint why. This coming of age story shies away from the cliché, the obvious and the cute, so much so that all the characters are pretty unlikeable, yet the film is consistently touching, very funny and occasionally moving.
Its central character, Oliver Tate (Roberts), is the Adrian Mole-style narrator, a schoolboy stuck in a dull Welsh town, brighter than most of his classmates yet struggling with his big issues getting beaten up, picked on by teachers and girls, specifically, Jordana, the object of his lust (Paige). She is not the prettiest or coolest girl in class, but seems as disaffected and bored by her dumb peers as Oliver, so he sets about trying to seduce her.
This he does by taking her to the cinema Joan of Arc and giving her the books which mean the most to him, including Friedrich Nietzsche. He also offers her his body on a red bedsheet, after making her dinner, which ends in predictable disaster, but his sheer love of words his favourite book is the dictionary eventually wins her over.
Meanwhile his parents, the painfully nerdy dad (Taylor) and bored mum (Hawkins), seem to have hit crisis point in their marriage, and Oliver is determined to sort this out as well. His effort double when mums old boyfriend apparently her only one before marriage turns up out of the blue and dazzles her with his psychic energy he is some sort of new age mystic, played to the hilt for laughs in a studded waistcoat and leather trousers by Paddy Considine.
The glory of Ayoades film is in allowing his child characters to be way more articulate and adult than their age suggests this makes them very funny and the adults seem strangely dopey. He clearly loves all manner of cinema, especially the French New Wave and British classics, and throws all of it at the screen freeze-frames, 3D stills, fast-forwards, chapter headings, vertical shots, but always with the story and crisp dialogue in mind. Visually too he creates a convincing world, of dusk shots, moody shores and almost monochrome use of colour, except for Jordanas signature red duffle coat. This is used in the films one real false moment, a direct nod to Dont Look Now which is so crushingly obvious it almost breaks the spell there was simply no need.
The only other real criticism is that the story, so compelling for the first half, becomes less so when Oliver abandons his romance with Jordana for actually pretty interesting reasons that are never fully explored to try and save his parents marriage. Its never quite as convincing or charming as the first hour, but it is a minor quibble. Ayoade manages to pull it back with a fantasy sequence which almost counts as a horror moment in an otherwise sweetly portrayed world, and a lovely ending.
Ayoade is best known for his portrayal of uber-geek Maurice Moss in the IT Crowd, a comedy in which he can pull off the silliest moments through sheer watchability. Thankfully he has brought the same qualities to his cinema debut, and if he can resist filling his films with nods to classic and sharpen up his stories he will be one to watch for a long time. Lovely film.
Overall verdict: Bang-on teenage comedy with oodles of appeal, lots of laughs and painfully sharp moments. One of the years best films so far.
Reviewer: Mike Martin