Son of Rambow. A Review.

When we were young, me and my friends saw The Matrix waaaaay before we should have. The result was slo-motion kungfu on the playground and a couple of severely grazed knees. It was brilliant. One of the reasons I love films so much is that every once in a while you can have a really visceral reaction to seeing one, and this is what happens to Will Proudfoot when he is shown the staggeringly violent Rambo: First Blood. What ensues is one of the most charming British comedies of recent years; a brilliant mixture of nostalgia tinged school hijinks, visual comedy, compelling performances, and a reverence for the art of amateur filmmaking.

Will Proudfoot has grown up as part of a religious community where music and television are forbidden, and so he retreats into a very vivid imagination. Lee Carter is the school rebel, though not without a cause. Lee wants desperately to make a movie for entry into a BBC competition, and after seeing First Blood Will is obsessed with all things Rambo, and so the unlikely pair team up to turn Will’s surreal script a reality - and for him to become the Son of Rambow. 

Bill Milner impresses as Will Proudfoot, managing to portray innocence and naiveté without being irritating. He has a real Buster Keaton-esque knack for physical comedy, with some of the best laughs in the film coming from Milner being thrown around in the name of cinema. Will Poulter is excellent as Lee Carter, managing to be enigmatic rather than arrogant, it is a 3-dimensional performance as when the bravado disappears we see the vulnerability underneath. The supporting cast all do a solid job, with Jessica Hynes standing out as Will’s conflicted mother, but overall it is Milner and Poulter’s film, and they carry it off wonderfully.

Director Garth Jennings is one half of Hammer and Tongs - an outfit known mostly for their music videos such as Blur’s Coffee and T.V. Jennings directs with vision and confidence, with Rambow feeling like a more personal film than Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the smaller scale suiting Jennings’ ability to find the cinematic in the ordinary. A good example of this is the defunct power station where the children film their masterpiece, through Jennings’ lens we see the piles of refuse and hulking concrete towers not as an eyesore but as a playground. Director of Photography Jess Hall gets the best out of the Hertfordshire countryside, capturing the idyllic summers we remember from childhood but don’t seem to get anymore. The one misstep for me was a sequence in which Will is running home and his imagination is represented by onscreen animation. It is not badly done, however there was very little animation used in the rest of the film - making this one intense scene feel a little incongruous. 

Although it is a family film, Son of Rambow tackles some fairly complex themes. The relationship between Will and Lee forms the core of the film, the two leads have real chemistry and when the friendship is tested there is real hurt and anguish. The subplot of the French exchange students is amusing stuff, particularly the way that Will’s schoolmates slowly change their appearance over the course of the film to be more chic, and the resolution with the French bidding adieu is surprisingly melancholic. The matter of Will’s religious family I personally found a little uncomfortable, Jennings is respectful of the subject, however there never seems to be a neat way to resolve the tension involved, which while certainly realistic - feels a touch frustrating. The absence of Will’s father looms over the film, with Will losing his father’s watch, as well as the inspiration behind the Son of Rambow being Will’s own desire to find his father. Milner portrays Will’s longing for a father figure effectively, especially his rejection of his mother’s friend Brother Joshua, and in the end Will does seem to come to terms with the loss of his father, however in a fairly subtle way. Jennings manages to juggle several themes and subplots, which at times crowd one and other in the films 96 minute running time, but overall he handles the subjects with wit and charm.

It is clear that Jennings and company are filmmakers who love making films, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the efforts Will and Lee, with their homemade stunts and effects, as they try to make movie magic. Jennings manages to capture the joy and exhilaration of making your own films, the necessary innovation and resourcefulness, the inexplicable charm of things being a bit rough around the edges. In many ways, Son of Rambow is the perfect antidote for a lot of the dark, brooding, effects heavy blockbusters we see these days, reminding us what films should be about. 

WHO: Will Poulter, seemingly a kid enjoying making a film about a kid enjoying making a film. 

WHAT: The hair, the clothes, the music, the 80s.

WHY: As inspiration to get out there and make your own masterpiece.

WHEN: At the beginning of the summer holidays, to remind you not to waste it.

(Art from: http://trampt.com/original-art/53593/son-rambow-watercolor-scott-campbell-scott-c)