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Son of Rambow (2007)

Director: Garth Jennings

Time Out rating

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63 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Garth Jennings’s last film, ‘The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, had visual imagination to burn, but was less sure-footed when it came to plot and character. It’s a pleasure, then, to find that his follow-up shows just as much wit and verve in its production design, while also succeeding as storytelling: ‘Son of Rambow’ is a schoolboy yarn with a bracing emotional honesty
that packs a real kick.

Jennings takes us to the early ’80s Home Counties suburbia of his youth for the story of two mismatched pre-teens. Will (Bill Milner) is the sheltered son of a strict religious family, whose father has died in the Falklands and has never even watched TV; Lee (Will Poulter) is the tougher wide-boy, a latchkey kid who bullies and then befriends Will as they embark on a homemade VHS opus, after seeing a pirate copy of ‘First Blood’.

Meanwhile, a group of French exchange students descend on the school, including one particular guy who constitutes a New Wave all of his own. Will is a keen doodler, and his sketches burst out across the countryside in playful CGI, but there’s also great entertainment in the boys’ lo-tech Heath-Robinson production plans.

Backyard remakes are very much of the moment – think Michel Gondry’s ‘Be Kind Rewind’ – but ‘Son of Rambow’ integrates its slapstick genre pastiche into a thoughtful story about peer pressure, neglect and yearning. Both Milner and Poulter are terrific; their performances, along with a keen eye for the indignities of the playground, help keep things the right side of sentimentality.

Author: Ben Walters 2008-04-01 09:41:43

Time Out London Issue 1963 – April 3 – 9

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User reviews of this film

dido said...

Posted on Apr 04 2008 12:14 Haven't seen it but it looks great!!

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paddy said...

Posted on Apr 03 2008 09:43 Awesome fun!

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Ewan Thomson said...

Posted on Apr 01 2008 12:52 A nostalgic trip back to a time when Boy George could complete a Rubik’s cube in 28 seconds – my blue chinny beard.
Summer, U.K, 1982 – Rambo: First Blood is out at the cinema and Lee Carter is filming it with his camcorder whilst relaxing with a cigarette, aged 12. Smelly rubbers are in at school and, were they not deemed inapproprate in some fashion by his mother, Will Proudfoot would be using them to rework his thousands of drawings. He sits in a musty shed at a makeshift desk, occasionally feeding his pet mice who live in the grass trimmings hod, and avoiding the omnipresent gaze of the Plymouth Bretheren family, of which his mother is a follower.
One day at school when Will leaves the classroom, (as he is not permitted to watch TV) Lee Carter gets thrown out of an adjoining room, to the great delight of his fellow classmates. An altercation with a goldfish bowl seals their fate together, the streetwise tyke and the reluctant alter boy. Lee sees an opportunity to abuse Will's better nature, but genuine friendships can come from the strangest motives, and it transpires that Will, upon watching a pirate copy of Rambo, is prepared to dedicate his life to being the star in Lee Carters action movie - Son of Rambow. After a near-drowning, the friendship is sealed in true boy style – by becoming Blood Brothers.
Here is a warm and affectionate film which ambles along nicely, and has all the feel of the early 80’s for people like me, who were growing up then. This is a nostalgic tale about that fathomless well of imagination boys and girls all have - the twilight of the age of innocence, the last generation of children to be kicked out until tea time in a world unaware of lurking dangers in park bushes.
Granted, it won’t win oscars for performances or camera work – it has a sort of roughness to it which compliments the general ethos of what the two boys are doing in the film itself – it is, of course, largely anecdotal, as Garth Jennings (writer and Director) freely admits. He and his friends actually attempted to film a sequel to Rambo: First Blood, so it is no surprise that the highlight of the film, the boys version of Son of Rambow, is a delight to watch, filled with material that is too funny not to be true. I was pleasantly reminded of idioms like the use of ‘skills’ as a general form of positivity, French exchange students, the chorus of cheers as someone got thrown out of class, and those endless mud-splattered, knee-patched summer days.
I think this film is worth a look, especially if you were growing up in that time and place – you’ll practically be able to taste the Space Dust.

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