I have a confession to make.  Despite a stellar cast, extremely high hopes and moments of outright brilliance, I was a little bit underwhelmed by Garth Jennings' film version of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  Sure, it's worlds better than it could have been, worlds better than any film based on a supposedly unfilmable novel(s) really has any right to be, but I just couldn't quite shake the feeling that maybe Jennings, a first timer at the time, had bitten off more than he could chew.  He bit off a shitload more than most could have, true, but there were definitely moments where Jennings seemed if not over his head then at least treading water hard.  Maybe he needed to do something a little bit smaller, a little bit more personal.

Uh ... hell, yeah.  Son of Rambow is that movie and it is an absolutely inspired work of genius.  Originally intended as Jennings' debut film Rambow sat in development hell for a good long time, unable to find financing because it was just too unique and personality driven a piece of work for the movie making machine to get an easy handle on, languishing until Jennings found a willing overseas partner after proving he could make a movie with Hitchhikers. But enough history. The movie. It's the story of Will, a young boy being raised in a Plymouth Brethren house.

For those unaware, the Plymough Brethren are one of the absolutely most conservative of  Protestant sects, expected to minimize contact with those outside the church, forbidden from watching television, etc.  This is a problem for Will, obviously, who attends a public school but must keep his distance from his classmates, leave the classroom whenever an instructional video is being played, etc etc.  Poor kid's bright enough but so socially secluded that he's got no friends at all, his only escape being into his wildly active imagination. And then Will meets Lee Carter, unrepentant hell child.

Essentially left to raise himself Lee is the polar opposite of Will - wild, unrestrained, manipulative, and rude.  Lee exposes Will to his first ever film - First Blood - and the pair become best friends, Will sneaking away from home to shoot a zero budget, home made, guerrilla sequel to the seminal action film. Jennings' brilliance here plays out on multiple fronts.  The man clearly remembers what it is like to be a child and taps deep into that world of boundless possibility fused with complete powerlessness.  He finds that perfect balance between the infinite options of an imagination unfettered by real world concerns and the tightly restricted world of a child who, at the end of the day, answers to parents who see things very differently. He gets elementary school politics ringingly, hysterically correct; writes brilliant dialog; is blessed with a pair of stunning young actors; has an incredibly playful sense of the absurd and is, most of all, very very funny.

Thematically Son of Rambow is pretty much exactly the same film as Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, both of them driven entirely by the belief in the power of pure imagination and creativity to, well, create. Both believe in the power of community and the importance of being active creators rather than passive consumers.  And, most importantly, both aim to preserve the purity of a child's viewpoint. Gondry's film, however, is a sort of fascinating failure, ultimately undone by a weak script and poor attention to the sort of character details needed to sell the larger point, starting with the creative gimmick first and hoping the character end would just fall into place.  Jennings starts from the opposite end, starting his film with perfectly realized characters and building outwards from there. 

The end result?  This is one that's going to last, very definitely one of the best films of the year. You can get a taste of Son of Rambow  by checking out the trailer and clips here.