garth jennings' SON OF RAMBOW (2008)

what is it about a child's mind that turns the countryside into a rolling symphony of righteous, invisible explosions when viewed through the window of a moving car? that turns a scarecrow at midday into a conniving foe, or a red necktie into a triumphant, bloody sweatband? Son Of Rambow is the rare sort of film about children that manages to mine these details convincingly, and put them to consistent use. because its protagonists lives are at times uncomfortably real, imagination isn't anything so simple as a momentary escape; it colors their behavior, and emboldens them.

soon after we first meet Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner), his teacher dismisses him from class as they prepare to watch a documentary film. a member of the culture-resistant Christian Brethren sect, he is forbidden from watching television, and instead sits in the hall filling a notebook with colorful sketches until a well-thrown tennis ball introduces him to the school's resident ne'er-do-well Lee Carter (Will Poulter). the two tenuously hit it off -- Will enticed by the novelties of secular childhood, Lee fumbling with the prospect of much-needed friendship. later that afternoon, a bootleg of Sylvester Stallone's First Blood becomes Will's first and only taste of popular culture.

the bootleg is Lee's own work (on behalf of his brother/erstwhile guardian), shot with a spanking, bulky new VHS camcorder. (among other things Rambow is, from its music and fashions to its style and sensibility, a graceful re-creation of mid-80s Britain.) but the camera serves another purpose in Lee's life, as he occupies his free time aspiring to a BBC contest for young filmmakers, and soon forces Will to be his star. (such is the dynamic of their friendship, even as it evolves; Will himself is heartbreakingly eager to forsake his upbringing, but Lee's Nelson Muntz complex keeps their relationship straddling a line between earnest affection and instinctive bullying.) and thus the fantasy-laden "Son Of Rambow" is born, first on Will's page and then through Lee Carter's lens. then, as one might expect, things begin to get in the way.

high concept aside, Jennings and filmmaking partner Nick Goldsmith don't seek to do too much more than celebrate the dramatic family comedy, and their smart script gets them most of the way there by itself; it's alternately fanciful and melancholy, both dignified and freewheeling, never acknowledging that these qualities too often stand at odds with each other. but it's also fascinating in the ways it chooses to augment and undermine genre conventions: though it's clear, for instance, that the traditionalist Brethren are obstructing Will's happiness, the film deigns to neither contrived malevolence nor apologism. why? because that's character, not plot. the same goes for Lee's nascent kleptomania, and the bad influence it casts on Will. as they leave a store, ill-gotten wares nearly spilling from their coats, we cringe for the impending reprisal, but none comes; why, after all, bend events for the sake of judgment?

the film's style is impressive in the same subdued way. there are scattered sequences animated to complement Will's wandering imagination, and the bulk of the filmmaking scenes are tinged with gloriously cartoony physical humor. but despite their music video background and their cluttered, well-meant debut The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Jennings and Goldsmith (together known as Hammer & Tongs) generally imbue the rest of Son Of Rambow with a handsome, patient tone that persists even through a goofy French exchange student subplot and glorious bits of throwaway wit, turning what could have been merely cutesy and indulgent into something far more accomplished.

as for the boys' movie? it's to Hammer & Tongs' further credit that the novelty of their film-within-a-film settles comfortably into the backseat once the story draws us in, and it's in this sense in particular that Rambow tops fellow MTV escapee Michel Gondry's vexing but similarly conceived Be Kind Rewind. both are about friendship, fictions, collaboration and democratized expression, but Rewind was all concept, blindsiding its audience with a careless, inept frame for VHS shenanigans; with Rambow the delicately gangly British boy playing "Rambow" might put people in the seats, but what'll keep them there is one of most charming, worthy family films in recent memory.