Directed by: Garth Jennings
Premise: In the mid 1980s, a pair of boys
(Will Poulter and Bill Milner), one a rebellious outsider raised by his
brother and the other the well behaved son in a super-religious family,
see the film First
Blood and begin to make a sequel with a home video camera.
What Works: There is a small
niche of films about the joy that cinema can bring for audiences and
filmmakers. Pictures like Sullivan’s
Travels, Adaptation,
and Be
Kind Rewind satirize Hollywood while casting a loving eye on the
filmmaking process, and others like Scream, The
Dreamers, and The
Life and Death of Peter Sellers explore the relationship between
the cinema and life. Son of Rambow hits right in between these
two categories and nails it perfectly. Rather than just recapitulating
the original film, Son of Rambow uses First Blood as a
starting point and explores how the film spurs the boy’s imaginations.
The creativity of each of the junior filmmakers is borne out in the process
and each deals with their personal problems through their film. The
relationship between the two boys is as real as any seen between two
prepubescents
on film and the development of their friendship is organic and never
feels forced. The
tomfoolery of the boys, the recreation of the film, and their
misadventures at school are very funny in a smart way. The story has some great supporting characters, namely a New
Wave foreign exchange student (Jules Sitruk) who is adored by all the
girls at school and the film is able to unify all of its major and
supporting elements. Something else the film does extraordinarily, is to
satirize the clichés of the Hollywood success story seen in a million
other films, sending the boys through the process of starting as a nobody,
then gaining fame and having success endanger their relationships and
their art, and eventually finding a balance between their success and
their creativity. The technical craft of the film is at a surprisingly
high level. Despite being a modestly scaled film, Son of Rambow has some terrific cinematography and in spots it uses sound quite
effectively.
What Doesn’t: Those expecting a lot of
references to the film may be disappointed, as the picture is not so
much about recreating the original film as it is about the boys
discovering their creativity and dealing with the real world through
fantasy.
Bottom Line: There have been quite a few
films about the love of cinema and Son of Rambow ranks among the
best. It is a rare gem of a movie that combines high cinematic craft
with meaningful substance, a great story, and an all around good nature
that is very endearing.