Comic Tale Has Its Own Sly Charm

Newcastle Herald

Friday November 7, 2008

By DESSON THOMSON

SON OF RAMBOW (PG)

Director: Garth Jennings

Stars: Bill Milner, Will Poulter

Screening: Lake Cinema

Rating: ***

THIS tenderly comic British film chronicles one lad's emotional journey from religiously sheltered whelp to macho screen hero at least in his pre-teen imagination.

His evolution comes courtesy of Sylvester Stallone's 1982 film First Blood, which is young Will's first movie experience.

From a family and religious group (known as the Brethren) that forbid him to watch TV or films, Will (Bill Milner) has lived perpetually off-grid. But after he lays eyes on Stallone's crossbow and can-do independence, he fashions a headband from a school tie and never looks back.

Set in the early 1980s, Son of Rambow follows the growing friendship between Will and lonely class clown Lee (Will Poulter) as they make a home movie inspired by First Blood.

It's more than just a chance to win an amateur filmmaking contest. It's an opportunity to fill the emotional voids in both their lives.

Director Garth Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) take us into the world of children without arch pretension, pandering or condescension.

They infuse their story with a crowd-pleasing combination of buoyant spirit and occasionally dark humour, as Will, Lee and a very eccentric French exchange student (Jules Sitruk) attempt to revisit Stallone's one-dimensional machismo territory with the goofy earnestness of youth. (A war-painted Will plays the intentionally misspelled son of Rambow.)

We cringe and laugh at and are ultimately moved by their clumsiness and innocence. And it endears us to the Rambo films in ways we never could have anticipated. The Washington Post

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

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