Two little boys
Deborah Ross
Son of Rambow 12A, nationwide
Son of Rambow is the tale of two young boys — one from a strict religious background; the other a troubled troublemaker — who come together to shoot a backyard version of Rambo: First Blood to enter it into the BBC’s Screen Test competition. It is a British film, set in some English suburb in the early Eighties, and it is chock-a-block with all the things that usually make films like this work very happily indeed: slapstick; fantasy; derring do; friendship; getaways on bicycles and scrappy underdogs triumphing over horrid adults. It’s mostly a kids’ film, but it also has its eye on cinema-accompanying parents with oodles of Eighties nostalgia, including Space Dust, jump suits, Swing Ball, scented erasers and those first mobile phones the size of your head. So it has everything except ... well ... any real or convincing charm. I didn’t mind Son of Rambow. It just didn’t bother me either way. Yes, OK, heart in the right place and all that, and leave off, Ross, because what’s next on your To Do list today? Drowning kittens? Well, as it happens, I did drown some kittens just last week and you know what? Nothing to it. Walk in the park.
So, to the two boys, who are William Proudfoot (Bill Milner) and Lee Carter (Will Poulter). Will, whose family is Plymouth Brethren, wears wholesome knits, prays a lot and is not allowed to watch TV or films. He spends most of his time in his garden shed illustrating his Bible with intricate little drawings. Lee, on the other hand, is a spiky-haired terror who smokes, curses and records inappropriate films at the cinema to sell on as pirate videos. Both boys are fatherless. Will’s father is dead while Lee’s scarpered before he was even born. Lee’s home is attached to the old people’s home owned by his mum’s boyfriend, with whom she has buggered off to Spain. Lee is looked after by a bullying older brother, while Will has his mother, played by Jessica Hynes (née Stevenson; fat Cheryl in The Royle Family), wearing a headscarf as well as a wide face that always looked pained.
After the boys meet in a school corridor, they hook up (much against Will’s will, initially) and Will gets to see his first film (a pirate version of First Blood), after which Lee forces him to be his stuntman in his homeshot version. This is an unlikely friendship story, which is fine — who doesn’t like an unlikely friendship story? — but, like much else in this film, it doesn’t ever properly gel. This may simply be because neither boy is especially engaging. Will is dull and a wimp. Lee is a callous bully. Of course, by the end one has learnt some grit while the other has softened but when I say by the end, I mean right at the end, as in: whoa, let’s change your personalities here, guys! As for Lee’s bullying older brother: a miracle!
Written and directed by Garth Jennings (who directed the movie version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), it’s quite the mishmash. The derring-do and the fantasy and the bicycle escapes and the slapstick never really come together as a credible whole. And it doesn’t exactly bend over backwards to achieve believability either. OK, heart in the right place and all that, but still. How old are these boys? They’re at secondary school yet act and look so young. According to my press notes they are ten, in which case: what are they doing at secondary school? If this sort of thing bothers you then this will bother you. Also, why is the sixth-form common room a disco? Plus, could you really get a Guide Dogs for the Blind donation box — you know, one of those ones shaped like a golden retriever — to fly through the air attached to a kite. True enough, it’s make-believe, but to believe in make-believe, you do have to be firmly on board in some way. Otherwise, it’s just nonsense.
Fair’s fair, though, and there are some nice comic moments. Eric Sykes’s cameo as the ancient bloke in the old people’s home who’s roped in to play the father of son of Rambow is magic, and the French exchange student who thinks he is Patrick Swayze is quite funny (at least at first; this running gag runs and runs and runs). All in all, it’s not a film to mind too much and while not a great kids’ film there is every chance most kids will like it. Maybe I have been a little too hard, but there is nothing I can do about it now. I’ve got six more kittens to drown plus a puppy to strangle, and all before tea.
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