Son of Rambow

Jennings is clearly having a wonderful time recreating the fantasies of his youth, but sometimes his perspective get a little too inbred, and the picture suffers for it.

We cringe and laugh at -- and are ultimately moved by -- their clumsiness and innocence. And it endears us to the Rambo films in ways we never could have anticipated.

With apologies to Mr. Stallone, no one would ever argue First Blood was an essential part of any healthy childhood. But the ability to make-believe certainly is.

Son of Rambow is an inventive and amusing coming-of-age movie that deftly entwines elements of farce and fantasy, rebelliousness and sentiment, while paying seriously funny tribute to the transcendent power of art.

These two boys have, along with writer-director Garth Jennings, turned a coming-of-age story into a treatise on both the fragility of artistic vision and the danger of popular opinion.