Son of Rambow

It's the eighties, and an isolated kid with a stellar imagination, whose family situation is religiously oppressive, teams up with / is bullied by the school miscreant into shooting a version of First Blood using a stolen video camera, in hopes of winning a young filmmakers competition.

Son Of Rambow's aims are big, conspicuous audience rousing and uplift, and comedy, and emotional heft. (The festival volunteer coordinator said he 'bawled and bawled'. At least I think that's what he said. It was at a party and things were very loud.) On the way, the film's got everything in it but the kitchen sink; an animated fantasy sequence, socially realistic grit, cartoon humour, shades of 'Oliver', a never-any-question-that-it's-bad religious cul... I mean order, and plenty of montage of First Blood. And a meant-to-be-cool French exchange student character who is so dully performed that he sucks all life and energy out of any scene he's in.

The first half of the film is outlandish and winning. It's also a bit discomforting. Lee, the miscreant, is a charming but totally heedless blagger, with zilch parental guidance and a criminal older brother. He's thieving from someone in nearly every scene he's in, and he basically threatens Will (the sensitive kid) into helping him with the film. Will is heavily removed from reality and it's not easy to watch him being driven to do stuff by someone who's unaware of his mental state, like fall out of tall trees for stunt purposes. The film switches to cartoon mode at such times so that nobody's actually harmed. Later on, when characters need to be harmed, the cartoon delivery is no longer in evidence. It's this kind of veering about with its style and logic that I didn't like in Son of Rambow. It's a particularly relevant issue for the second half of the film, where things become more emotionally heavy. That, plus the sheer amount of stuff the film tries to address, plus the increasing presence of the scene-deadening exchange student, started to make me antsy. But the film does rally for a rousing ending of the type you almost demand in the 'filmmaking kids come good' genre (?).

If I say for argument's sake that Son is a kids film, it's one with a lot of edge and non-surface complexity. There's no doubting its humour and warmth overall, but there are things that don't work, and things that are downright murky. And there's that bloody French exchange student.