Whether that dangling “w” in the title is some kind of legal concession or just a cute reflection of its protagonists’ youth, it more or less sets the tone for Son of Rambow, a dewy-eyed, plaintive, unafraid-to-be-adorable exercise in stylish nostalgia for a simpler time, when hair was big, cellphones were bigger and Sylvester Stallone was huge.
Rambow is the second film by the duo Hammer & Tongs (director Garth Jennings and producer Nick Goldsmith), best known for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and sundry Beck, Blur and Supergrass videos.
Pop kitsch oeuvre
Shot and designed in a romantic pop kitsch style to match their oeuvre, it’s the story of two fatherless English boys who form an unlikely friendship over their shared love of First Blood and their alienation.
Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner) lives with his mother, sister and grandmother in a plain house with strict rules.
His family belongs to a religious sect called the Brethren, which forbids his watching television or films, so Will finds himself ejected from class every time his teacher gets lazy and pops an educational film into the VCR.
Lee Carter (Will Poulter) is a hellion with fiendish eyebrows whose father abandoned the family and whose mother spends her time in Spain with her new husband.
Lee lives with his elder brother Lawrence (Ed Westwick) in a mansion adjacent to the family business.
Hall of bonding
Lee often finds himself ejected from class as well. It’s in the hallway that Lee meets Will and recruits him as stuntman in a homemade sequel to First Blood, which he hopes to enter into a contest.
Very quickly, Will’s role as stuntman expands to that of star — he casts himself as the son of Rambo, on a mission to rescue his father, throwing himself into a variety of death-defying situations, to Lee’s great delight.
No take-homes
As movies glorifying the imagination of children often do, Son of Rambow includes fantasy animated sequences.
The super-hip style is groovy but doesn’t mask the fact that Son of Rambow doesn’t say anything much. For a film about falling in love with the movies, its insights on them are next to nil.
Speaking of which, that “w” makes “Rambo” a little like the rainbow Lee and Will would like to get over.
