Rich man’s Stand By Me: I’ve never loved the classic 1986 coming-of-age drama, but I think that’s because I saw it too late. By the time I got to it, its cinema had become dated. Son of Rambow takes all the heart of Stand By Me and gives it a badly needed fresh coat of paint.

This week I was assigned Son of Rambow. This 2007 release directed and written by Garth Jennings, also known for the well-intentioned and likeable but ultimately box-office flop and fumbled touchdown pass that is Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. By the way, expect the football puns to come fast and furious now that the Browns have kicked off what every Clevelander hopes will at least be a mediocre season and not the spectacular failure it will probably be. Son of Rambow stars Bill Milner as Will Proudfoot and Will Poulter as Lee Carter. They also share a Tom Hardy connection as Will plays Jim Bridger, the kid Tom Hardy convinces to abandon Leonardo DiCaprio in the visually stunning Revenant and Bill voices one of Tom’s sons in Locke. Bill also plays a young Magneto in X-Men: First Class.

This is the story of two young boys who have dealt with their loneliness in totally opposite ways. Lee Carter is a wealthy child. His father is absent and his mother is galavanting around the world with her boyfriend. His older brother treats him as a slave, but Lee Carter worships his brother. As a result of his social isolation, Lee Carter acts out in school. He’s constantly reprimanded by teachers, steals anything he can get his hands on, and is thrown out of class. Lee Carter’s one dream is to make a student film he can enter in a competition and win. Will Proudfoot’s family is a member of a very conservative Christian sect, the Plymouth Brethren. Will is not allowed to watch movies, listen to music or do the things that children do. As a result, he is isolated from his classmates, especially when his teacher frequently shows documentaries, forcing Will to sit in the hall. Will’s father is dead and at the opening of the film his mother is quite dominated by the church, especially a church member named Brother Joshua. Will’s passion is drawing and his sketchbook is full of imaginative (and probably sinful) drawings.

Since Will sits in the hall during the many documentaries his teacher shows and Lee Carter is constantly thrown out of class, eventually the two meet. Lee Carter cons Will out of his father’s watch, but due to Will’s irrepressible naivete and politeness the two end up spending more time together than Lee Carter planned. Will accidentally watches a copy of First Blood that Lee Carter taped at a movie theater and is entranced and wants to act out the movie. Lee Carter wants to use Will’s enthusiasm to win the student film competition, but they both quickly become friends, devoid of ulterior motives. Lee Carter really wants to win the competition, but is now happy with his new friend. Will wants to remain friends, but his mother and Brother Joshua are beginning to suspect that he is drifting away from his church’s teachings and needs to be disciplined.

There’s a whole 3rd plotline that starts off seemingly pointless. During the time when Will and Lee Carter are becoming friends, French foreign exchange students arrive. One of the students, Didier, is insanely popular in England. Boys want to be him, girls want to be with him. When this plot is not tied to Lee Carter and Will, I found it to be an annoying distraction. The plotlines collide when Didier discovers that Will and Lee Carter are making a movie and Didier decides he wants to act in it. Lee Carter was enjoying the small, but very personal partnership he and Will shared. Will, suddenly popular, wants to bask in the limelight and quickly climbs the social ladder on Didier’s coattails.

All of these tensions, Will and Lee Carter’s friendship, Will’s desire to be popular, Lee Carter’s desire to keep the movie private, Will’s antagonism with his mother and church, and Lee Carter’s devotion to his older brother explode in a fantastically written climatic scene. After it all plays out, everyone loses. Lee Carter is hospitalized in an accident and breaks his brother’s camera. Lee Carter’s brother, rather than displaying concern over his critically injured brother that we all hope for, is only concerned with his camera, crushing Lee Carter’s hopes that his brother cares about him. Will loses all of his fickle friends and his only true friend, Lee Carter. Will’s church also discovers the extent of his heresy, and he is forced to be rehabilitated, lest his family be ejected from the church- this is the low point in the movie.

However, in the denouement, the film comes full circle. The final scene is a joyous ode to the power of friendship and I nearly was forced to cry in public watching it. This film has it’s faults, Didier’s plotline is handled clumsily when it is introduced, but in the end closes with a relatively strong (albeit a touch heavy handed) message. All of the tensions in the movie are relieved, but it is done with each tension closing with the best possible outcome for the characters. There is no bittersweet ending here, only spectacular celebration. This might be the film’s biggest flaw. The themes it tackles are complex, and although it doesn’t wrap everything in a neat bow, it gets pretty damn close. There’s a lot here in 96 minutes, maybe too much. Overall, Son of Rambow is a fun film and I really enjoyed watching it, but I’m not sure it’s able to handle the number of themes it has going. The quick and overly positive ending to the film will make it difficult to build tension on multiple viewings.

Son of Rambow isn’t available to stream anywhere, but it’s a solid movie.