If Wes Anderson and the late Claude Chabrol made a movie together, it might have turned out something like Richard Ayoade’s quirky and melancholy coming-of-age film “Submarine.” Set in Scotland in the 1980s, it tells a pretty basic story of a schoolboy (Craig Roberts) trying to woo a diffident classmate (Yasmine Paige) while the marriage of his morose parents (Sally Hawkins, Noah Taylor) seems to be falling apart.

The film’s charm is in how Ayoade, a TV director, combines music, film techniques (including a Super-8 mini movie made by the protagonist called “Two Weeks of Lovemaking”) and off-the-wall humor to evoke the era and a seaside setting.

“Submarine,” which has attracted interest from u.S. buyers, is a co-production between several companies, including Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Films, and the about-to-be-disbanded British Film Council.