Diamondback Online - The University of Maryland's Independent Daily Student Newspaper

With the advent of specialty divisions (many major studios have them nowadays), the line between indie and studio films has continued to blur, and in the oversaturated "studio indie" market, it seems Paramount Vantage may be developing a chokehold.

With production credits on Into the Wild, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood in 2007, the company seems poised to hit big again through its distribution of the comedy Son of Rambow. Quirky in just the right way, Rambow endears and entertains.

Rambow is about two kids with opposing lifestyles but similar interests. Will's (Bill Milner, My Boy Jack) conservative Christian family protests in front of a showing of Rambo film First Blood, while Carter (newcomer Will Poulter) is inside the theater bootlegging the movie. Despite their differences, both want to be artists; Will doodles throughout the school and Carter is an amateur filmmaker. When a school discipline issue puts them together, Will ends up seeing First Blood at Carter's house. Amazed, Will joins Carter to create their film Son of Rambow (the movie within the movie). Charm ensues.

The Diamondback spoke with the very charming pair of writer-director Garth Jennings (The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy) and his producing partner Nick Goldsmith (also of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy).

The inspiration for Son of Rambow actually came from First Blood itself, just like the movie within the movie, Jennings said.

"When I was a kid, about 12 years old, my friends and I saw First Blood … This guy with a knife and a stick, taking on 200 men," he said. "We made our own little movie version. [Childhood] is a very simple, free existence."

While making their film, Will and Carter have to deal with Will's disapproving mother, Mary (Jessica Hynes, Four Last Songs), and Carter's jerk of a brother, Lawrence (Ed Westwick, Breaking and Entering), as well as super-cool French exchange student/aspiring actor Didier Revol (Jules Sitruk, Les Aiguilles Rouges).

Jennings imbues the proceedings with the proper lightness, and shows a deft hand in the movie-within-a-movie scenes. By dramatizing the scenes themselves further than they are being dramatized by the characters filming their "movie," Jennings makes them into a movie-within-a-movie-within-a-movie. It sounds like it'll make your head explode, but it's funny and subtle.

Yet sometimes the film is a little too pleased with its own oddness. An early dream sequence with a scarecrow which looks like a less violent Sin City is more distracting than amusing; as Jennings said, "It's like a great big smack around the face." But the scene is too much of a tonal shift from the rest of the movie to really fit.

Still, the writing is impressive - not only for its continually effective humor, but also for a emotionally engaging undercurrent that sends messages about the value of art, the effects of censorship and about religious extremism. Mainly, though, the film is a touching story about friendship, and as Goldsmith stressed, "that was the core of it."

Milner comes off like a less well-mannered Freddie Highmore (The Spiderwick Chronicles), and Poulter manages to be a bully and seem vulnerable at the same time. The quality of the lead performances are impressive, considering the children's inexperience.

"They'd never been in anything," Jennings said. "The two leads had never been in any school plays or anything like that."

Jody Talbot's (Sixty Six) antic score adds to the fun, as do the "stunts" the kids do for their film (with increasingly silly and/or dangerous results). And avid filmgoers will catch a number of film references; including one to The Great Escape (Carter tosses a tennis ball against the wall in detention like Steve McQueen).

And much like Juno, a film whose mix of strangeness, sweetness and surprise enchanted a shockingly large amount of moviegoers (domestic gross is at $143 million and counting), Rambow switches it up in the third act. A number of characters are revealed to be more than they seemed, in ways which are all-too-believable.

At a brisk 96 minutes, Rambow positively flies by. With an odd sensibility of its own that doesn't feel forced, a lot of funny scenes and genuine sweetness and heart, Rambow should find a substantial audience if marketed properly. It worked for Juno.

dan.benamor@gmail.com

RATING: 4 STARS OUT OF 5

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