An innovative and charming British comedy, Son of Rambow is a decent film that has had the good fortune to uncover Bill Milner, a child actor whose innocence, vulnerability and scrawny exuberance leap off the screen. Milner plays Will, a 10-year-old boy whose father died while mowing the lawn, and whose sheltered upbringing as a member of the Plymouth Brethren has led him to retreat into his own solitary world of colourful drawings and fantastical stories. A chance encounter with the wayward Lee Carter leads to him watching a pirate copy of Rambo: First Blood, and with his imagination fired the two set out to make their own home movie version of Stallone’s post-Nam classic.
At its best, Son of Rambow is a raucous mix of boyish fantasies – the gung-ho excess of Rambo mixes with Will’s quintessentially English childhood of conkers, acorns and secret adventures, while the boys’ school is a place of tall girls with big hair and short skirts. The boys are at the heart of the film, but there are also good adult performances, particularly by Paul Ritter as a geography teacher whose bored lessons on scree and arrogant rivers are brilliantly deadpan. A tone of knockabout fun is set from the opening credits, which feature a romping soundtrack and a series of front gardens as tableaux, complete with Swingball, Walkman and a Ford Capri to stoke up the nostalgia and set the early ‘80s scene. The film doesn’t maintain this early pace throughout, and occasionally wanders off track as it sets up and attempts to resolve too many plot points, but Milner’s natural charm helps to ensure that it doesn’t go too far wrong and the result is an original and endearing British comedy.
It does lose a bit of steam towards the end, but it’s so good natured and sweet and fun that it’s won you over so you don’t care.
Written by Adam on April 11th, 2008 at 4:12 pm