Review of Wah-Wah (2005) by Stuart K — 05 Aug 2013

Written and directed by Richard E. Grant, this is a semi-autobiographical film based upon Grant's life growing up as a youngster in Swaziland, which at the time was still under the rule of the crumbling British Empire, and it's last days until it was granted independence.

It's a very good coming-of-age drama with some good performances and a lot of local colour of the time period it's set in. Set between the mid 1960's to the early 1970's, this tells the story of Ralphie Compton (Zac Fox and Nicholas Hoult), whose father Harry (Gabriel Byrne) has ties with the aristocracy who lives in Swaziland.

However, his mother Lauren (Miranda Richardson) leaves Harry for another man, and Ralphie goes to boarding school. A few years later, he comes back home to find out that Harry has married Ruby (Emily Watson), who works as a stewardess for American Airlines.

Although Ruby and Ralphie don't connect at first, they soon do, but when Lauren comes back into Ralphie's life, Harry descends into serious alcoholism. Grant called upon a lot of favours to get this film made, but he shows a lot of confidence in his directing and his writing, even if it was a difficult production, with a "control freak producer" as Grant put it and only 7 weeks to film it.

But, it looks brilliant, and he was lucky in having a good cast on screen to portray his childhood.