Submerge (2016): The Boundary Between Control and Indulgence, an In-Depth Analysis of Youthful Desire’s Cruel Drift

The more we tighten our grip to seize the illusion of perfection, the sooner we find ourselves slipping through our own fingers. The societal standard of versatility demanded of today’s youth, and the cycle of deprivation that comes with exhausting oneself to meet that standard, is a familiar struggle to many of us.

This film stares directly, without romanticism, at the cold, damp process of how the desire for perfection spirals into self-destructive indulgence.

🌿 Moments When This Film Deeply Resonates

• When an unspeakable emptiness and anxiety surge within, despite having seemingly held everything in your hands.
• When the expectations of others and your own desires become so entangled that you lose sight of what you truly want.
• When you want to trace the psychological trajectory of a love that has lost its footing, transforming into obsession and self-sabotage.
• When you want to find the courage to let go of the obsession with perfection and face your own flaws.

🎞 Notes Before Watching

This film depicts a young woman’s anxiety and deprivation as they manifest through sexual escapism and the provocative nightlife of BDSM. Rather than dwelling on sensationalism for its own sake, these elements serve as aesthetic devices to expose the psychological drift and relational fragmentation of a youth who has lost all control. We recommend focusing on the character’s internal transformation as you watch.

🎬 Film Information

• Title: Submerge (2016)
• Director: Sophie O’Connor
• Screenplay: Sophie O’Connor, Kat Shearer
• Country: Australia
• Genre: Drama, Romance, Queer, Psychological Drama
• Running Time: Approx. 91 minutes
• Platforms: Naver SeriesOn, Google Play Movies, etc.
• Cast: Lily Hall (as Jordan), Christina Hallett (as Angie), Andrew Chamberlin (as Lucas)

📖 Submerge: The Downward Spiral of a Youth Lost Between Control and Excess [No Spoilers]

Jordan (Lily Hall), a twenty-year-old college student, is a high-achieving perfectionist—a promising competitive swimmer who also excels academically enough to participate in her professor’s research project. Under her mother’s rigid expectations and the compulsive pressure to be the best, Jordan struggles to maintain absolute control over her daily life.

However, her structured existence begins to crack when she meets Angie (Christina Hallett), the professor’s research assistant and partner. Drawn together by an irresistible attraction, the two fall into a secret affair, but this precarious love combines with Jordan’s hyper-possessiveness to foreshadow a devastating downfall.

Ultimately, unable to bear the guilt, Angie ends the relationship. Deprived of control, Jordan flees into the night to numb her sense of loss. Meeting Delilah, a club owner, Jordan throws herself into a space ruled by anonymity and raw stimulation, and her life begins to collapse beyond recovery.

🌊 Physical Control and Psychological Overflow: Jordan’s Dual Spaces

🏊‍♀️ From Regulated Lanes to the Amorphous Deep

Jordan’s life is anchored by two opposing realms: the swimming pool and the nightclub. The pool represents a space of highly regulated order that Jordan can perfectly control. Within its lanes, she monitors herself down to the second, striving to meet the benchmarks of success imposed by her mother and society.

Conversely, the nocturnal space she escapes to after her breakup with Angie is like an amorphous deep sea, entirely beyond control. Suffocated by her rigid, structured life, Jordan finds a paradoxical sense of liberation by abandoning herself to extreme, uncontrollable stimuli. Through this sharp contrast, the director visually demonstrates the psychological mechanism wherein the suppression of perfectionism inevitably triggers a destructive release.

💔 An Immature Ego Incapable of Accepting Rejection, and the Manifestation of Obsession

🤝 The Raw Face of Possessiveness Exposed Through Angie

For Jordan, Angie is not simply an object of affection, but a test of her own omnipotence—the belief that she can have whatever she wants. Jordan even attempts to overcome the obstacle of Angie being the professor’s partner, viewing it as another achievement to conquer.

Yet, when her grip on the relationship is lost through Angie’s decision to break up, Jordan’s world collapses. The anger and hurt she displays do not stem from a deep, mutual bond, but rather from an immature ego reacting to the loss of control over her own life. Instead of romanticizing their bond as a simple lesbian romance, the film persistently captures how immature desire, which fails to recognize the other person as an autonomous agent, corrupts a relationship.

🔎 Reinterpreting the Ending: The Dissolution of Illusion and a Breath Above the Surface

On the surface, the film’s ending adopts an open structure, offering no dramatic reconciliation or complete recovery. Jordan remains in an uncertain state, having failed to reclaim her academic success, her athletic standing, or her love.

However, this incomplete ending goes beyond merely sorting through the debris left by their relationship; it declares the dissolution of the illusion of “perfect control” within Jordan. Letting go of the arrogance that she could hold onto everything, Jordan finally faces the bleak truth that she has captured nothing at all.

Growth begins only in the painful moment of acknowledging loss and confessing one’s own powerlessness.

What Jordan gains is not victory, but an objective awareness of herself; what she loses is the counterfeit perfectionism that was devouring her youth. Having been deeply submerged and suffocated under the water, her first step toward emerging above the surface and learning to breathe on her own is the essential interpretation of this film.

💬 Submerge: Queer Narrative Variations and Contemporary Limits

Q1. There is criticism that the film’s depiction of sexual escapism and BDSM is excessively sensational. How should we interpret this?

Some viewers and critics argue that Jordan’s escape into BDSM and extreme nightlife to cope with her sense of loss is rendered in a somewhat provocative and disposable manner. Because Jordan’s intimate psychological pain is expressed through extreme behaviorism rather than dialogue or emotional exchange, the narrative can feel abrasive.

However, this can be viewed as a directorial choice to visually maximize the scale of Jordan’s anxiety. When an individual who has expended immense energy maintaining self-control finally breaks, the counter-reaction is bound to be equally extreme. The film’s true aesthetic context emerges when we read these actions not as mere spectacle, but as a character’s desperate struggle against the terrifying loss of control.

Q2. Compared to traditional queer cinema, how does “Submerge” differ in its representation of women?

Many queer films place the confusion of discovering one’s sexual orientation, the struggle against social prejudice, or the pain of coming out at the center of their narrative. Jordan, however, begins her journey having already fully accepted her sexual orientation.

The film does not treat her falling in love with another woman as the source of conflict. Instead, it focuses on the psychological drama of perfectionist anxiety, the failure to control desire, and the collapse of the self—struggles universal to youth. By refusing to exploit queer identity as a plot device and instead weaving it naturally into the background of youthful drift, the film represents a progressive step in contemporary female-centered cinema.

✨ Submerge: A Cold Comfort to a Youth Who Only Learned to Hold Their Breath

For those who have constantly held their breath underwater to meet the world’s demands for perfection, this film acts as a mirror. It offers no deceptive consolation or easy answers; instead, it coldly proves how empty the achievements won through self-destruction truly are.

Through Jordan’s downward spiral, the film delivers a painful truth: we cannot control everything, and the very attempt to do so becomes a prison of our own making.

💭 A Question for Those Submerged

We often trap ourselves in the sweet spell of believing we can have it all. Yet, true growth sometimes arrives when we learn to willingly surrender what we cannot hold.

Are you holding tightly to something now just to maintain a fragile balance, or are you sinking because you lack the courage to let go?

🔮 Violet Screen Recommendations: Alternative Perspectives on Entangled Desire and Internal Collapse

• Queens of Drama (2019)
  • Why Watch: Set against the backdrop of the early 2000s pop music industry, this queer musical drama chronicles fifty years of destructive, passionate love and hate between Mimi, a conformist pop star, and Billie, an unruly queer punk rocker. Beneath its bright, shimmering glittercore aesthetic lies a dazzling display of uncontrollable love, artistic obsession, and the toxic dynamics of a relationship where both partners consume each other to the point of ruin.
• Cocoon (Kokon, 2020)
  • Why Watch: Set during a hot Berlin summer, this film depicts the clumsy exploration of identity and emotion among teenage girls. While lighter and warmer in tone than Submerge, it delicately captures the youth narrative of discovering oneself through relationships, leaving a distinctly poignant aftertaste.