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Son of Rambow
By Joey
Magidson
Rambow kicks some
a$$ on the screen
At a
certain age we all look fondly back onto our first experiences with
film. Be it a Disney cartoon or First Blood, there’s something
special about first getting entranced in the magic of the movies.
Son of Rambow is, at its core, a love letter to everyone’s
childhood and all the times we would spend outside pretending to be our
favorite superhero, crime fighter, or disillusioned Vietnam vet. The
film is not perfect by any stretch, but when it focuses on the love of
movies the boys share, it’s on quite steady ground, as opposed to when
it deals with some of the flimsier aspects of the film.
Will is a young boy in England during the 1980’s. He is from
a very religious family and is forbidden from watching movies or
television. To cope with this, he develops an overactive imagination
and draws complex cartoons. Almost by accident he becomes friends with
Carter and through this friendship is shown a bootleg copy of First
Blood. This changes Will’s life and he and Carter set off on a quest to
make a sequel of sorts to the tale of Rambo (or Rambow, as Will calls
him), about his son, oddly enough.
Both boys are making their acting debuts here, and do very
nice jobs. They don’t have any of the annoying quirks that some
inexperienced child actors have. This film would not work at all if the
acting didn’t work, and both boys (Bill Milner as Will and Will Poulter
as Carter), under the direction of Garth Jennings (who helmed the
whimsical adaptation of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”), pull it
off rather effectively.
Seeing Will run around pretending to be the “Son of Rambow”
is, along with some of the more inventive special effects the boys
develop for their film, the biggest joys to be found in the movie. When
it focuses on how Carter bullies Will sometimes due to the fact that he
is bullied at home, or when the picture deals with Will’s religious
extremist family and their desire to curb Will when they find out what
he’s doing, the film suffers. These points are just not as interesting.
This movie shares a lot in common with another film this
year, called Be Kind Rewind. Both are, at their core, films
about the joy to be found in making movies without interference from
“the man” (studio systems, parents, etc). Both films are undeniably
cheesy and sentimental about movies, and it gives them both a minor sort
of charm that fuels the films. Son of Rambow is more a
child of the 80’s than Rewind (which is especially helpful
considering the time period of the film), but each manages to make a
statement about the innocence of the movies without going too over the
top. When all is said and done, Son of Rambow turns out
to be far from revolutionary, but it’s a nicely quirky and sweet little
movie that has modest aspirations, but it is impossible to hate it for
that when it pulls it off so very well.
***/****
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