Son of Rambow DVD Film Review: Garth Jennings' Characters Will Proudfoot and Lee Carter Are Stars in the Making

Written and Directed by Garth Jennings

Rated PG-13

96 mins.

4 stars

Though most of us quake in fear at the thought of teenaged boys left to their own devices, Son of Rambow is, for the most part, a delight, especially, one imagines, for those in the audience old enough to remember, if you'll forgive the expression, the dark ages. In a world where even 8-year-olds have cell phones, most of which are equipped to record pictures, video and sound, it's a refreshing change of pace to see a movie that still remembers the pre-digital era.

Exploring themes of male friendship via 1980s pop culture, Son of Rambow is a beautifully imaginative combination of low budget special effects and CG animation. Think Stand By Me (1986) meets High Fidelity (2000) with a camcorder.

The fact that Will Proudfoot isn't allowed to watch the telly like any normal British kid has turned him into a social pariah at school. Left on his own in the hallway with only the sound of the television and his Bible for company, Will fills the pages of the Book with vibrant sketches. Lee Carter, the school bad boy, is a freckle-faced blond with a foul mouth and a feisty temper. When the two boys meet in the hallway of school during classes, their skirmish ends in a broken fishbowl, and, presumably, a dead fish, as well as a visit to the headmistress.

Lee manages to trick Will, who isn't the sharpest crayon in the box, into being his film's stuntman, and while at Lee's house, which is inexplicably filled with old people and loud Jamaican nurses, Will sees his very first movie, a boot-legged copy of Rambo: First Blood. The experience changes Will's life in a profound way that starts with a white lie to his mother, and after that, it's all downhill (or uphill, depending on whether or not you support children being brainwashed by cults) from there.

Soon, Will unintentionally becomes aligned with the ultimate of cool kids, Didier Revol. Initially gender ambiguous and wearing his hair in a refashioned pompadour, Didier soon kisses all the girls in school as he struts around in his trademark red boots. When the impossibly cool French exchange student learns about the movie in progress, he offers his services as the star. "I help you to find your Daddy man," he promises, in one of the best lines of the movie.

Despite a few confusing leaps of logic, and the jarring nature of Will's first fantasy sequence, it's certainly no surprise the movie was a fan favorite at Sundance (and a favorite at Paramount Vantage, rumored to have purchased the movie for $7 million).

Don't let the fact that the movie was produced by Hammer and Tongs, the same duo who worked on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, deter you: the tongue-in-cheek 80s references, hilarious acts of petty thievery, and colorful dream-and-fantasy sequences transform the movie into a larger-than-life remembrance of life in a technologically simpler time.