'Son of Rambow' springs from the well of filmmaker's early memories
By Kelley L. Carter
Tribune reporter
May 9, 2008
Tribune reporter
All writer and director Garth Jennings really wanted to do was craft a throwback film, you know, something that would take him—and with any luck an audience—back to an untainted place in the 1980s, when make-believe was enough to entertain us for hours on end.
What he and filmmaking partner Nick Goldsmith ended up with was a story of two unlikely friends—the class deviant and the kid whose religious sect dictates that he never watch television—who go on a moviemaking mission and break down barriers.
"It started when I had seen a copy of 'Rambo: First Blood [Part II],' " says Jennings of his love affair with films. "It blew our minds. [My friends and I] were like, this guy can do anything! He can take on 200 men with just a stick and a knife! He was in the forest, and we used to play in the forest every day, and this was like the perfect film for us. It just blew us away, so much so that I made my own action movie with my friends based on Rambo."
From that, he says, he started making what he considers terrible little movies with his childhood buddies. Years later—after film school and after a little early success with his business partner Goldsmith—here's the movie based on that memory.
The pair revisited the film school experience in Chicago recently at Flashpoint Academy for the Media Arts and Sciences, 28 N. Clark St., where they touted their film and met with the college's students.
"Son of Rambow," opening Friday, tracks two kids who try to make their own film. More important, it captures that childhood-like wonder.
"When you look back on that age when you were about 11 or 12 and the world is very different and anything's possible and you don't consider the consequences in terms of relationships or even jumping off dangerous things and all that good stuff—that's what we wanted to get at," Jennings says. "It was just all about trying to capture that feeling and how we remember it rather than how it really was."
It also was a way to contribute something to the canon of coming-of-age films. There hasn't really been much out there that satisfied the filmmaking duo, who go by the name of Hammer & Tongs.
"You don't have that emotional, uplifting feeling that older films like 'Stand by Me' or films like 'Harold and Maude' have. These sorts of films—they had a sort of strange effect on you. You came out of the cinema, and you just felt good about life. ... And we knew we wanted to make a film that would have that sort of effect on people."
The film was shot in 2006 and for the most part features first-time actors. Ed Westwick co-stars as an older brother, and thanks to CW's "Gossip Girl," he's one of the best-known.
"I think it's a very humbling story. It's good to be reminded of life on a smaller, more natural scale that can make us smile and feel warm inside," Westwick says. "It's the way we were when we were young and were oblivious to the complications of our lives."
klcarter@tribune.com
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