How sad is this?

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

An incredibly intriguing, engaging, emotional and thoughtful drama from Denmark. Intriguing because there is a mystery about the sequence of events. You see the movie from one brother's perspective, initially, and there's a question mark over the whereabouts of the other brother. Then you see the other brothers story, starting a few weeks earlier, and everything starts to fall into place. A very clever plot device.Engaging and emotional because you feel for the characters. They might not be the most angelic of people, but they are people worth caring about. You are drawn into their characters and relationships, and keep fearing for the worst.Thoughtful because of how the movie depicts life at its rawest and people at their mot vulnerable, in a very sensitive and intelligent manner.Not perfect though. The film is a bit rough around the edges. There are some minor character inconsistencies and some small sub- plots are inflated all out of proportion. Solid performances all round, including one of the better performances you'll see from a child: Gustav Fischer Kjærulff as MArtin.Great script and direction from Thomas Vinterberg, who I'm sure we'll hear a lot more of in the future. He has already directed one English-language/US-based movie, Dear Wendy, so will not be totally foreign to US audiences. His follow-up to Submarino, The Hunt, received a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination in 2014, and has pushed him further into the limelight. He is bound for great things.

There's a very fine line between probing into human failings and all-out misery. Director Thomas Vinterberg's latest balances itself precariously between the two throughout, wavering between plot elements that seem grounded in its characters' emotional realities and those that are unnecessarily grim. Ultimately however, the movie redeems itself thanks to fine ensemble work and its daring, assured direction."Submarino" is the unforgettable story of two brothers, long estranged and haunted by a dark secret buried in their past, who live separate lives in modern day Copenhagen. Nick (Jakob Cedergren), a violent ex-con, tries to help out an old friend, but falls quickly into old habits. Meanwhile, his brother (Peter Plaugborg), raises his son, but is unable to escape his own demons of addiction. Each is on a path to self-destruction, and they must find each other -- before it's too late.The cast is uniformly strong -- both Cedegren and Plaugborg are solidly believable in their roles. Cedegren's acting, minimal and yet poignant, is especially remarkable. Vinterberg has a genuine respect for his characters and a desire to see them transcend their trappings, and his film, in turn, mostly succeeds where it could so easily have fallen short. When its numerous narrative threads finally converge, the resulting pathos feels genuinely earned and authentic. Adapted from the novel by Jonas T. Bengtsson, "Submarino" was an official selection at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival.

Am not a big fan of depressing socially relevant dramas--however if you are you will love Submarino.The film shows how destructive alcoholic parents can be. We follow two boys who are neglected by an alcoholic mother.Most of the film is devoted to following these two boys now in their 30s for a short time. They have separately developed dysfunctional lives themselves.The oldest boy can be violent and has served time for it. The younger brother is a heroin addict with a young son.A side plot was lifted from Mice and Men by Steinbeck--a socially isolated inept man murders a girl. It is done quite convincingly. Watch it to see.

Still involved in his preoccupations with collapse of family foundation and its bonds (as evident also in his fantastic Dogme 1, FESTEN), Vinterberg comes back to Berlin with a film which is not about love at all, but about misery in general. SUBMARINO is the story of lack of love, family and commitment which is reflected in addiction, despair and murder. Looking through a glass darkly at the depressed people in times of depression, it gains its strength from the constraint approach to the subject matter. In his usual personal visions (of course, without a trembling camera after his Dogme propaganda and anti-bourgeoisie pretense), Vinterberg finds his way through a way far from any sentimentality. Grey overtones in each shot marks the world he's going to portray – a world in which everyone has forgotten all about fear and trembling. However it seems too naturalistic, SUBMARINO is able to make a survey into the lives of miserable men of the third millennium, not as a tearjerker, but as a veritable mirror