Jessica Stephenson -  Mary

Bill Milner - Will

Will Poulter - Lee Carter

Eric Sykes - Frank

Release date:04/04/08

Running Time: 1hr 36mins

 

 

Garth Jennings, director of the flawed but fun Hitchhiker's Guide to the

Galaxy film, fulfils his obvious potential with a very funny and charming

slice of 1980s nostalgia.

 

Directed from his own script, which he was working

on prior to Hitchhiker's, this is very obviously a deeply personal

project. Fantastic young lead actor Bill Milner (think a less annoying

Freddie Highmore…) plays Will, a shy child who lives with his widowed

religious mother and has little contact with the rough side of life…until a

detention-worthy encounter in the school corridor with Carter, whose

introduction is a visual triumph. Will Poulter is fantastic as Lee Carter,

the coolest kid in school. Every school had one of these, a bad boy with a

heart of gold…maybe. But not every school had one who got up to such

demented antics involving flying plastic dogs…

 

It's a great pity that this film is being released after the similarly

themed Be Kind Rewind as this is far, far funnier. Jennings' staging of

the boys' production of insane home movie Son of Rambow is just inspired,with endless quirky and inventive stunts. The warmth of the script has attracted a nice supporting cast of British actors including comedy legend Eric Sykes. Spaced star Jessica Stevenson stands out in an unusually dramatic turn as Will's mother, a leading member of the Plymouth Brethrenwho disavow music, films and television. Will thus has to sit outside while TV documentaries are shown in class, which leads to a wonderful running gag, and also his fateful encounter with Carter.

 

Featuring the coolest New Romantic French exchange student of all time among other joys this does occasionally dip into cliché with its 'touching'

message about childhood friendship and the liberating joy of cinema. But

it's all done with such obvious affection for the perils of watching

Rambo at too young an age that it can be forgiven its faults.

Son of Rambow is reminiscent of Grosse Pointe Blank in being a film so

warm-hearted and fun that it can make you nostalgic for a 1980s adolescence you never even had.