Young Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner) has never seen a movie, having been raised by the Plymouth Brethren, a strict Christian order that does not allow movies, television or recorded music. So when Will, who's 10 years old when this movie takes place in the early 1980s, sees his first motion picture - a video of Sylvester Stallone's "First Blood," bootlegged from the cinema by school bully Lee Carter (Will Poulter) - it transforms his imaginative brain.
Lee, who is trying to enter a young filmmaker's contest for the BBC, has tricked naive Will into being his stuntman. But Will has other ideas. Will's wild drawings, which fill the pages of the Bible he carries with him, become the storyboards for an elaborate sequel, "Son of Rambow," which Lee and Will shoot in the woods. But there's a snake in this do-it-yourself film paradise, a too-cool-for-school French exchange student (Jules Sitruk) whose influence over the rest of the school threatens to overwhelm Will and Lee's self-made movie.
This grimy but hopeful view of childhood is obviously close to the heart of writer-director Garth Jennings ("The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"), who revels in Will's gift for turning trash into movie magic. It calls to mind the work of Michel Gondry (such as "Be Kind Rewind" or "The Science of Sleep"), but the story is more genuinely childlike.
Credit that genuine quality to Jennings' cast, most of them (except for Will's widowed mother, nicely played by "Shaun of the Dead's" Jessica Stevenson) unknowns with little movie experience. The young performers, especially Milner and Poulter, are engaging without being cloying. Their enthusiasm for diving into their homemade epic is infectious, which makes "Son of Rambow" a delight for anybody who loves movies.
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* SEAN P. MEANS can be reached at movies@sltrib.com or 801-257-8602. Send comments about this review to livingeditor@sltrib.com.
Son of Rambow
* WHERE: Theaters everywhere.
* WHEN: Opens today.
* RATING: PG-13 for some violence and reckless behavior.
* RUNNING TIME: 96 minutes.
* BOTTOM LINE: A delightful tale of two kids who discover the joy of making make-believe before the cameras.
