Son of Rambow is a funny, realistic portrayal of childhood and not at all sappy

* * * 1/2 (out of 5)

With the price of everything going up these days, I've been more willing to wait for videos on several new movies that I would have seen in the theatre just last year. I could have waited for Son of Rambow, but really wanted to give it my money and help support this kind of film so more would be made like it.

A British entry from the people who brought you "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", Rambow is the story of Will Proudfoot, a young (undisclosed religious person but seems to be Mormon) growing up in England in the late 1980s. He goes to a Christian school that is not part of his faith and has to sit in the hallway while the rest of his class watches educational TV.

Played by a younger Freddie Highmore lookalike named Bill Milner, young Will is cut off from the world and the enjoyment of life, and falls under the spell of the school bully, Lee Carter. When they both get in trouble for a fight Carter causes, Carter works his conman charms on the gullible Will and a bond forms if not exactly a friendship. Carter (played with great tough charisma by Will Poulter) films and duplicates cinema films on VHS tapes and gives them to his obnoxious, older brother to sell. His most recent "acquisition" is the original First Blood. When Will overhears and eventually watches the ultra-violent classic he is immediately swept away. His repressed little soul soars as he imagines himself as a young Rambow (he doesn't know how to spell the real name) out to save the world.

With Carter's videocamera and considerable skills at moviemaking and Will's strong imagination they decide to film their own sequel to Rambow. The no-budget, guerilla filmmaking these two auteurs pull off would make any independent director proud. In one scene, Will, as Son of Rambow, jumps off a swinging rope into a lake for the camera, only to start flopping around and really scream that he can't swim. Lee, as both director and Colonel Trautman, has to jump in a save him. It makes for great footage even though it wasn't planned. Having done something like this myself in high school, it is amazing how much fun it is for you and your friends to create a movie. No matter how cool young men seem to be, they become playful children if the camera is on them. The land of make believe is a powerful place.

But beyond the movie within a movie, the relationship that forms between Will and Lee is very rough, very real and at times both very funny and very touching. At one point Lee is sitting on the school hallway floor bouncing a ball off the other wall like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape, meanwhile Will is hiding behind a desk hoping Lee won't bother him. When he finally peaks out the ball is coming straight for his head and bangs right off the noggin. It had to hurt but was still funny as hell.

What isn't funny is the portrayal of the strict religious sect that Will belongs to. Religion can be filmed in a wondrous way if it's about pomp and ceremony and finding your spiritual self. But when it's about repression and forcing people to turn away from their real selves, it paints a dark and ugly picture. In this kind of environment you root for Will to fight back and even lie about his whereabouts to his mother, because it is the only way he can live his life.

The introduction of French exchange student, Didier Revol, and his posse is a little Hollywoodish, but the idea of a kid with this kind of charisma taking over a school is based in reality. I loved the reaction to him by his fellow French classmates.

Bill Milner has a future based on his performance in this movie.

The Freditor