Son of Rambow

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Son of Rambow
UK quad poster
Directed by	Garth Jennings
Written by	Garth Jennings
Starring	Will Poulter Bill Milner Jules Sitruk Charlie Thrift Jessica Stevenson Neil Dudgeon Charlie Elliot
Music by	Joby Talbot
Cinematography	Jess Hall
Editing by	Dominic Leung
Distributed by	Paramount Vantage
Release date(s)	4 April 2008
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Son of Rambow is a 2007 film written and directed by Garth Jennings. The film premiered 22 January 2007 at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.^[1] It was later shown at the Newport Beach Film Festival, Seattle International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and Glasgow Film Festival.^[2] The film was also shown at the 51st BFI London Film Festival. Son of Rambow was released in the United Kingdom on 4 April 2008 and opened in limited release in the United States on 2 May 2008.^[2]

1 Plot
2 Production
3 Critical reception
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Plot

U.S. poster

Set in "a long, hot summer in the early '80s", the film is a coming-of-age comedy. It tells the story of two schoolboys who are inspired by the film First Blood to make their own action adventure film, which they hope will win them a young film-maker competition. Neglected youngster Lee Carter (Will Poulter) — the worst-behaved boy in school — has access to the home video equipment used by his bullying elder brother's video pirating enterprise.

Will (Bill Milner) couldn't be more different; quiet and shy he comes from a family that belongs to the strict Plymouth Brethren religious sect. Will is forbidden to watch films or television and is made to leave his classroom when the teacher puts on a documentary film. In the corridor he meets Lee, thrown out of another class for bad behaviour. At first, Lee sees Will as an easily manipulated lackey but after Will sees a pirated copy of First Blood and throws himself into the film making experience, the two realize how much they each need a best friend.

Their movie takes on a chaotic life of its own, as they fight to keep control of it, and also to keep it secret from Will's family. Ultimately it changes the lives of both boys, and their relationships with their friends and families.

[edit] Production

Son of Rambow is a project that Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith — collectively known as Hammer & Tongs — worked on for some years. Its development was interrupted when they were asked to make The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and it is their second major feature film. It was inspired by Jennings' own experiences as a child in the 1980s, when video equipment first became available to the public, and the film lovingly recreates the atmosphere of an English comprehensive school of the time, using a soundtrack of familiar and less familiar pop tracks from the era to good effect.^[3]

The film was shot primarily in the English town of Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire: featuring Ashlyns School and The Rex, a recently refurbished Art Deco cinema.

The film includes a vintage clip of Jan Pinkava winning the BBC Screen Test competition. The minor role of Danny, an acolyte of Didier, a glamorous French exchange student, is played by Stanley Kubrick's grandson, Sam Kubrick-Finney.^[4]

The film is endorsed by Sylvester Stallone, the star of the Rambo series. However, the "W" in the title is added because of legal reasons.

[edit] Critical reception

Son of Rambow received generally favourable reviews from critics. As of 2 May 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 76% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 70 reviews.^[5] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 66 out of 100, based on 29 reviews.^[6]