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For every person who went to see Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, laughed for fifteen minutes, scratched their head through the rest, and left wondering what in the world the movie was supposed to be about, Son of Rambow is your answer. It may not have any well known actors in it, its two main characters may be underage, and its movie parody may limit itself to only a small handful of titles. But where Be Kind Rewind's look at amateur filmmaking fell flat on its face after only a few laughs, Son of Rambow's tale of two young boys, a camcorder, and a Rambo remake perfectly captures the simple truths of life and story both in front of and behind its camera for a tale that will not only make you laugh, but send you away with a smile.

Soon after the movie starts, we find William Proudfoot (Bill Milner) drawing all over his textbooks. Every corner is a flipbook. Every page of text is covered with an entirely new creation. As each chapter comes to life with the world that Will creates, the transformed book almost proclaims the greater story that is to follow. On each page are both the world that is and the dreams that swirl inside of William's mind, the reality in which Will lives meeting the greater reality his heart seeks to find somewhere in it. And as Will joins school mischief-maker Lee Carter (Will Poulter) to take his pages from text to screen, their journey explores what it might actually look like to find the deepest needs and desires of our hearts in our own lives.

From the very beginning of the movie, the boys' film is inextricably tied to their lives. As the two boys make a movie about Rambo's son's attempt to rescue his aging father, we learn that Will, who plays Rambo's son, lost his father sometime in the last few years. Although Lee Carter, the movie's cinematographer/director, initially pulls Will into the project under the guise of a made-up debt, the story that unfolds reveals that Will is about the only friend or family Lee Carter has. And at the same time that the strict religious sect that Will's family belongs to threatens to expel him for making the movie, it is the movie itself which suddenly surrounds Will with more friends than he's ever had before.

Where the connections in each boy's daily life are characterized by sadness, pain, extreme control, unforgiving judgment, or lack of appreciation, in their project and in each other they find a bond that almost seems to free them from the negativity in all their other relationships. William's creativity goes from being condemned to being celebrated. Lee Carter goes from being taken advantage of and dismissed to being respected and needed. And as they come together to bring to bring to life the story inside of them, it is as if both of them are brought to life in a way they never have before.

In the tradition of creative differences and Hollywood politics, however, the growing project eventually arrives at its own points of crisis. When an accident involving a flying dog brings the movie to the attention of their other classmates, the movie goes from being a two man show to an ensemble piece. As the movie grows, so does the disapproval of Will's religious community. And with Will's religion almost pushing him away, bright lights, cool music, and fast cars pulling him into a world of excitement he cannot resist, and his relationships with Lee Carter and his family failing to keep up, let's just say Will finds himself in a bit of an explosive situation.

But in the same way that the story Will and Lee Carter set out to tell is about fighting for a relationship of value, in the end, life proves that real relationships of value will fight to survive also. They will not bail out as soon as the going gets tough. They will not reject us just because we don't fit some perfect mold. When others abandon us, they will still be there. And there, they will reach out to us in love.

More than just a movie about the fantasy world of children, Son of Rambow is a story about life. It is about friendship, family, faith, and belonging. It is about creativity meeting reality. And it is about the strange truth that the most sense reality makes is often when it runs into our imagination.

Possibly stealing the top spot for my favorite movie tagline in a long time, Son of Rambow's tagline states, "Make Believe. Not War." Just thinking about it on a grammatical level is enough to get me excited. But after watching the movie behind it, I'm pretty much ready to make my own bumper sticker.

Just think about it. "Make Believe." At the same time that it is the name of an imaginary game we so often think of as irrelevant to any sort of reality, it is a command that reaches out to every one of us living in that reality. Like every child who has made up stories to fill their summer days, every one of us has stories we desire to fill our lives. Inside our minds, they may feel like nothing more fantasy and false hope. But, as Will and Lee Carter show us, if we simply let them out and begin to MAKE what we so desire to BELIEVE, pretty soon we will find that the very longings of our heart are our reality. In making them a part of our reality, they will become an undeniable part of everyone else's too. And I don't know about you, but given the choice between destroying what I fear and bringing to life what I hope for, I choose to MAKE what I BELIEVE.