It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...

15-year-old Oliver Tate has two objectives: To lose his virginity before his next birthday, and to extinguish the flame between his mother and an ex-lover who has resurfaced in her life. 'Submarine' is a melancholic comedy, and would slip easily into a boxset with 'Rushmore', 'Scott Pilgrim' and 'Harold and Maude'. Richard Ayoade's debut is extremely well-crafted, less cynical and more mature than you might expect from an alumnus of dark British comedy.