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Writer/director Garth Jennings has been busy with video clips and commercials since his debut film based on Douglas Adam’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in 1999. Being in the first generation of video age kids, Jennings remembers his fearless childhood antics with a video camera. He also remembers seeing a pirate video copy of Rambo – the hero who could ‘leap from cliffs, sew up a cut in his own arm and take on a whole army just by using bits of the forest around him’. His hilarious, nostalgic celebration of childhood exuberance takes the audience back to the long summer days of 1982, when school corridors were endless and French exchange students seemed like they were from a different planet.
Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner) and Lee Carter (Will Poulter) are both outsiders. Will has been cloistered by religious brethren who forbid music and television and Lee is the school bully whose uncaring family is largely absent. They meet in the school corridor after being sent out of their classes – Will because the teacher is showing a video and Lee because his behaviour is unacceptable again. Armed with Lee’s brother’s video camera, the unlikely pair get together to make a video that imitates their hero who takes on the world. When visiting French exchange student Didier Revol (Jules Sitruk) wants to be part of the production, the film develops Lord of the Flies overtones and challenges the friendship of the two boys. This surprise hit at Sundance creates a kaleidoscope world of childhood dreams and fantasies that celebrates childhood, friendship, invincible heroes and the perils and possibilities of the video age.
Rated PG and directed by Garth Jennings
