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Significantly, both Will and Lee are growing up fatherless: one orphaned, the other abandoned. Lee's family situation is additionally complicated by his mother's relationship with a man who runs a UK-based elder care facility largely from the Continent, which means a very odd living arrangement for Lee and little parental contact. Of course, Will's situation is additionally complicated by his Plymouth Brethren milieu.

Didier (Jules Sitruk, center) joins the Rambow team

One of the first things Lee does after meeting Will is to con him out of the watch he's wearing—which just happens to have belonged to Will's father. So far, so-so … but then the other shoe drops when we meet Lee's older brother Lawrence (Ed Westwick). The theme of the bully who is himself bullied at home may be a familiar one, but Son of Rambow wrings extra pathos from Lee's genuine devotion to his big brother.

At some point during filming, Lee and Will's project comes to the attention of their fellow students, particularly flamboyant, androgynous Didier (Jules Sitruk), a French exchange student whose MTV couture and studied ennui make him a superstar to the boys' awed classmates. What happens next only partly echoes French director Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, another recent nostalgic and silly fable about DIY filmmakers remaking Hollywood films. In Gondry's tale, filmmaking ultimately brings the community together; Rambow suggests that not all visions can be shared, at least not without becoming a different sort of vision, losing something in the process.

Lee gets behind the camera for the next scene

Alas, in a film that offers understanding to everyone from schoolyard bullies to abusive older brothers, from droning sixth-form science teachers to pretentious French pretty boys, Rambow's unsympathetic, even vindictive portrayal of the Proudfoots' Plymouth Brethren religious milieu is all the more disappointing.

Will's isolation and awkwardness might dimly echo the maladjusted protagonist of the quirky American indie comedy Lars and the Real Girl, but Son of Rambow has none of that film's respectful attitude toward believers. And unlike Millions, another fanciful British comedy about a boy with religious issues, Rambow isn't interested in moral conflict or ambiguity. Pressured by his mother to mend his ways, Will solemnly promises not to "betray the Brethren again," but has no intention of keeping that promise and no second thoughts either about that or lying to his mother.

Rigid, domineering Brother Joshua is a dissonantly unpleasant presence, and Will's mother's childhood story about buying a record player for a song she heard outside a shop will rightly strike viewers as a tragic anecdote of faith gone wrong. Rambow offers glimpses of innocence in Will's spirituality, from spontaneous and set prayers to the juxtaposition of religion and imagination represented by his Bible, but the loss-of-religion vibe is the dominant spiritual note.

Still, despite its flaws, Son of Rambow works more often than it doesn't, and its celebration of imagination and the ties that bind even in highly dysfunctional situations makes up for most of its faults. It's one of those pretty good films that's good enough to make you wish it were even better.

>Talk About It

1. Do you know anyone who never watches movies, or who doesn't own a television? What are their reasons? Do they see it as a personal choice, or as something all Christians should do or would be better off doing? Do you know anyone who would be better off not owning a television or going to movies?
2. Did you ever see a movie at a formative point in your life that changed you in some way? What was it? Why did it have that effect? How do you feel about that film today?
3. What are some ways parents can try to deal with the possible bad influence of other children on their own? What are the pros and cons of these different approaches? Are some better than others? What mistakes can parents make in this regard?

The Family Corner

Son of Rambow is rated PG-13 for "some violence and reckless behavior." "Reckless behavior" includes various physically dangerous and otherwise irresponsible actions undertaken by the young protagonists, from smoking and shoplifting to playing in a hazardous industrial area and performing dangerous stunts for a homemade movie. Violence includes some bullying, shoving and such as well as the fantasy combat associated with the movie project. There is also a scene in which two characters deliberately cut their palms to become "blood brothers." There is some crass language and a few instances of the Lord's name taken in vain.

Photos © Copyright Paramount Vantage

© Steven D. Greydanus subject to licensing agreement with Christianity Today International. All rights reserved. Click for reprint information.

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