Beyond the Blockbusters: 'Son of Rambow'

Sick of the same old thing at the megaplex? Here's an offering that's not from the Hollywood pipeline.

How many of us were first introduced to the giddy, gory glory of the movies at a friend's house?

"The Deer Hunter" and "Friday the 13th" shocked my system on sleepovers far before I was ready for them. So much for "Tom & Jerry." What was this new terrifying/fascinating carnage taking place on the screen?

In "Son of Rambow," Will Proudfout (Bill Milner) is a young boy growing up in a strict religious sect in 1980s Britain. He's not even allowed to watch educational documentaries at school - he has to sit outside in the hall until they've finished.

The dam bursts one fateful day when Will catches a bit of "First Blood" at the house of his friend, Lee (Will Poulter). Within an hour, he's turned his necktie into a head band and stabbed a scarecrow with glee.

Will and Lee are something of an odd couple. The school bully, Lee nonetheless takes the quiet, artistically inclined Will under his wing because he realizes the smaller boy has the creative talent needed to fulfill his dream of winning a BBC home-movie contest. (It doesn't hurt that Will is also eager to put his body on the line for the movie's ill-advised stunts.)

With its hilarious scenes of hand-crafted filmmaking, "Son of Rambow" makes for a nice companion piece to the recent "Be Kind Rewind." Both are set in an analog world, yet they're evocative of the sort of amateur auteurism that has exploded in our YouTube era.

The movie is nostalgic, too, for the high-wire act that is adolescence, as Will learns to negotiate friends, parents, cliques and the finding and losing of popularity.

Writer-director Garth Jennings ("The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy") partly based the movie on his own childhood experiences. It must have been "First Blood," not "Deer Hunter," that served as his initiation. I wonder, what was yours?

"Son of Rambow" opens Friday in New York City and Los Angeles. Look for it in Chicago-area theaters on May 9. Read more by movie editor Josh Larsen at LarsenOnFilm.com.