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Friday, Jul 04, 2008
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Friendship is key ?in movingly hilarious Rambow |
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| Friendship is key ?in movingly hilarious Rambow | ||
| by Sara Michelle Fetters -
SGN Contributing Writer Son of Rambow Opening May 9 Young Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner) has never seen a movie. His family members belong to a puritanical religious sect called The Brethren, and watching any sort of filmed entertainment or listening to music simply isn't allowed. Shy, introspective and a bit of an outsider nonetheless, Will has a vivid imagination, drawing cartoon doodles inside his Bible and on toilet stall walls in his small community grammar school. Lee Carter (Will Poulter) is everything Will is not. A bit of a bully, he's routinely getting kicked out of class and sent to the principal's office for various minor offenses. With parents seemingly on continual holiday, and with only a narcissistic egotist of an older brother to look up to, Lee doesn't play by the rules or feel like he has to listen to those in authority, his friendless state an acceptable consequence of being such a rebel. After a chance meeting in the hallway, these two boys with nothing in common end up crafting an unusual and complicated friendship nobody at school quite comprehends. Things get even stranger after Lee shows Will a pirated copy of First Blood, the youngster's mind blown completely wide open by Sylvester Stallone's emotional and brutal action opus. Next thing you know, the two are making something of a homemade sequel entitled "Son of Rambow." But when other kids at the school get wind of what they're up to and want to be involved, the pair's newfound friendship slowly begins to unravel, especially after a French exchange student tries to take over the production. Yet with everything - family, religion, school, teachers, popularity - all working against them, somehow Will and Lee find a way to overcome these obstacles, finishing the film and showing it to the world being the one thing both can agree on, no matter how much hardship ends up coming between them. The only real problem I have with Garth Jennings' (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) latest effort Son of Rambow is just how long it has taken for this wonderfully imaginative and heartfelt wonder to reach theaters. I saw this little gem opening night at the 2007 Seattle International Film Festival, and figuring as I just went to the press launch for this year's event, the fact it is only opening now a year later is something of an annoying mystery. Why? Because this is a great movie. Funny, moving, emotionally charged and filled with winning character moments, Jennings has made a marvelous picture that intimately understands that complicated, wide-eyed stage of burgeoning adolescent friendship perfectly. It reminded me in a way of a strange, happily surreal and electrically alive hybrid of Lasse Hallström's My Life as a Dog and Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep, using facets of each but twisting and turning them in highly unusual ways in order to make this particular story a true original uniquely its own. Admittedly, I'm not completely head over heels. The subplot involving the Proudfoot family's extremist religion never comes off very well, and a late movie twist involving the mother doesn't feel remotely genuine. I also wasn't completely enamored with all the chaos surrounding one of the exchange students, and while a couple of jokes involving the character pay off in spades (including a final walk towards the back of a bus that's surprisingly heartbreaking) the majority of them fall unquestionably flat. And yet, by and large this is a movie I find myself grinning ear to ear thinking about. The central relationship between Will and Lee is so strong, so rapturously realized, I almost wish there was some way I could keep watching it grow and evolve as the two boys age into maturity. There is a simple honesty to their tale that's immediately intoxicating, and while the flights of fancy both of them seem to revel in are suitably silly and juvenile the bond they form is palpably authentic. After the screening, the friend I went with was thunderstruck by what he saw. The film got him thinking of his youthful days and of a particular friendship he thinks about even now a couple of decades removed. It reminded me of how the choices we make in our lives, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, can have lasting impact. Our lives as children, as adolescents and as young adults shape and mold us in ways we can't remotely comprehend or prepare for, only the maturity of age the telescope allowing us to view the full panoply of who we are and where we came from. Son of Rambo, for all its silliness and immature humor, understands this. It speaks on multiple levels, reveling in a person's past, present and in their limitless future. It knows the power residing inside of everyone to take control of their lives and become something better for doing so. Most of all, it grasps that the friendships we make as children are the key to unlocking who we will become in adulthood. For that alone, this isn't just a movie to enjoy, it's also one to take comfort and revel in. Courtesy of moviefreak.com |
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