Film distills essence of boyhood dreams
By Phil Villarreal
Pvillarreal@azstarnet.com
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 06.05.2008
No boy of the 1980s lucky enough to have cajoled his parents into letting him watch "First Blood" didn't pretend he was the hero on the playground.
It was just a fact of life. In those days you became what you saw. That's why you were Han Solo one day, Rambo the next, and Robocop the day after. The movie "Son of Rambow" is one of the few that, like "Stand by Me," nails the details of childhood so well — the frustrations, flights of fancy, the wonder and terror — that your heart flutters.
Set in 1980s England, two socially shunned boys who are taken with the film "First Blood" decide to make their movie of "Rambow" (their spelling makes perfect sense, since the hero is so handy with a bow and arrow).
Will Poulter plays Lee, the school ruffian who routinely gets kicked out of class. In the lonely hallway he meets Will (Bill Milner), a meek, flustered artist taken out of class during a video because his ultra-religious mom forbids him from watching TV. Together, these half-personalities form almost a whole person, and a friendship manifests. They determine to make a movie together, using Lee's camcorder, household items as props and the limitless resources of imagination.
Writer/director Garth Jennings, who laid an egg with his debut, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (2005), shows considerably more heart when he's stripped of big budget and the expectations that come with revered source material.
It's clear that Jennings is telling at least a somewhat autobiographical story. Will expresses himself by making flip animation books and crayon doodling in the margins of text books. He takes everyday sights such as dogs and scarecrows and envisions them as super-powered villains in imaginary adventures of which he's the muscular star. His visions magically bounce to life as his sketches enter the real world, or vice versa. Along with Lee, Will sneaks away from his house and school for filming. Both boys suffer measures of abuse in their broken homes, and manifest their fears and dreams in not-so-subtle ways on camera.
The one false note is a side plot in which a French exchange student, Didier (Jules Sitruk), steps off a chartered bus and instantly becomes the most popular kid in school, with a posse of followers and girls literally lined up to make out with him. When Didier takes an interest in the movie the boys are making, a gulf forms between the protagonists, stirring up some artificial conflict. Even Didier's bizarre, unfulfilling story packs an emotional wallop in a dialogue-free epilogue.
If you, too, are a son of "Rambow," or are from the era of The Lone Ranger or even the Power Rangers, this movie calls to you.
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