Dir. Garth Jennings, France/UK, 2007, 96 mins
Cast: Bill Milner, Will Poulter, Jessica Stevenson
Review by Carol Allen
There's almost a sub genre of British movies inspired by a turning point in the writer or director's childhood, films such as Sixty Six - the 1966 World Cup Final - & Wondrous Oblivion, where cricket teaches a boy about loyalty and the realities of racism, or Queen of Hearts, where the young hero learns the difference between truth and family fiction.
All the examples quoted above were set in the sixties. Writer/director Garth Jennings would have been around ten in 1982, when this film is set. The turning point for the young hero of this movie is when Bill (Milner), a shy boy from a restrictive and puritanical Plymouth Brethren background, is shown a video of the film "Rambo" by his new friend Lee Carter (Poulter) - the first film he has ever seen. Lee, who is the out of control school terror, leads an unusually independent life with his elder brother and an absence of parents in an old people's home owned by his family. He borrows his brother's movie camera and persuades Will to help him make his own version of the film, called "Son of Rambow" (the misspelling is deliberate) for an amateur movie making contest. Things get even more interesting when a group of French exchange students arrive at the school, led by the exotic and spuriously glamorous Didier (Jules Sitruk), a self obsessed dedicated follower of the Goth fashion of the period, who decides he wants to co-star in the boys' movie.
Milner is very engaging as Bill, whose only creative outlet is his talent for drawing, frowned on at home by his strict, devout but loving mother (nice performance from Stevenson) and her rigid, and bossy admirer, Brethren preacher Joshua (Neil Dudgeon). It is delightful to watch Bill emerging from his shell and learning the value of both friendship and a bit of healthy rebellion and self assertion. Equally good is Poulter in the showier role of Lee Carter; a great buccaneering name for the character, which fits him perfectly. Lee's a right little tyke, a bit of an 80s Artful Dodger type and Poulter is real find. There is also a nice cameo from Eric Sykes as an elderly resident of the home dragged in to unknowingly play the role of the ageing Rambow senior.
The film is sweet, funny and orginal, and succeeds very well in telling the story from a child's point of view. Watch out for the sequence involving the flying dog, which is a comic treat. There are also some occasional effective and imaginative uses of animation. The story appears to be struggling a bit towards the end, when drama takes over from comedy and the film veers dangerously in the direction of sentimentality, but Jennings skillfully avoids the trap and gets back on track with what is a delightful movie about childhood, which never patronises.
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