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Truly Dreadful Film

Lack of good storyline.

Excellent but underrated film

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Director Richard E. Grant brings his autobiographical story of growing up in Swaziland, Africa to the screen with vision and creativity. Sensitively observed and beautifully realized, this a very unique coming of age story. A fine cast does terrific work as the British colonialists who populate the landscape of Grant's imagination. Outstanding is Emily Watson as Ruby, a lovely American who marries Grant's characters father and seems to understand the little boy better than anyone. She is, to say the least, absolutely electric in the role and lights up every scene in which she appears. What a gifted and charismatic actor she is and this is one of her finest performances in a career where she has never done work that's less than superb. It is a delight to watch her cast her magic spell over this film and help Grant create one of the most superlative and uniquely inspired cinema coming of age stories every made.

WAH-WAH is a coming of age story about a teenage Briton in Swaziland just before independence. Most of the drama derives from the changing marital status of his father and from the impending retreat from Empire.Where this film is different is in its semi-autobiographical nature. Writer/Director Richard E. Grant based the story on his own childhood. The colonialists he depicts aren't the monsters of post-colonial films or the heroes of imperial ones. Instead Grant depicts the colonial bungalow culture of boredom, adultery, snobbery and alcohol. Like many real stories the facts get somewhat in the way of the fiction. The film is not especially satisfying as a coming of age drama nor as a depiction of the end of Empire. It is best thought of as a brief glimpse into a vanished culture. The narrative is weak, character arcs barely exist and the drama is repetitious (either bed-hopping, snobbery, alcoholism or related to a performance of the musical Camelot).Often the film is at its most interesting in suggesting the way things would change after the film ends. Miranda Richardson's American, with her anti-snobbery and pop-psychology suggests the cultural change of the 1960's and the Americanisation of England. The son's (illegal) trip to the cinema to watch A CLOCKWORK ORANGE concludes with him imitating the malicious smirk of Alex in the film. Like the audiences of the time, it is the smashing of social and moral values that attract him. He feels the power of violence, not the revulsion that Kubrick intended.WAH-WAH can't be accused of being especially interesting or good but with the benefit of Grant's first-hand knowledge it becomes an insight into a vanished era and a vanished people.

I've been a big fan of Richard E. Grant's work for years. I enjoy his manic on-screen energy. I especially enjoyed his 1995 published diary WITH NAILS, where he told of his life in pre/post independent Swaziland: his parents divorce, his father's position as minister of education, seeing Clockwork Orange illegally, etc... Therefore, I was excited to see Wah-Wah. I was wrong. If I get bored very early in a movie, that's a bad sign. I found it very slow and I didn't sympathize with the characters. I thought Gabriel Byrne gave, as always, a very powerful performance. Miranda Richardson is always a strong presence. I like Emily Watson, but I didn't like her in this film. I think she was trying too hard to act "American." Maybe Grant should have just cast an American. Once again, I was excited to see this film, but after seeing it, I felt as if it didn't need to be made.

Richard E. Grant, if I may say so, owes a huge apology to the population of the United States. For I can see them now, those millions of Americans, earnest devotees of popular culture, trotting along to their local movie theatre in the erroneous belief that Grant's "Wah Wah" is a Barbara Walters biopic... (Anyone who needs this explained to them should consult their nearest popular culture guru...), That however, is where the apologies stop. For, not only does Grant give usthe real talent in the extended Walters family, the wonderful Julie of that ilk, but we get Gabriel Byrne, Miranda Richardson cornering the English Bitch market and the incredibly talented Celia Imrie (There will be those who think Imrie's performance somewhat OTT. It isn't. The English Gorgon she portrays is alive and well and infesting the Home Counties). I was also very impressed with Nicholas Hoult's sensitive performance.Just one gripe. The material covered in the film, plus the array of talent used, would have justified a miniseries in which a good deal of desirable fleshing-out of the characters could have been done. That aside, this is a filmthat makes me look forward to Grant's future efforts as director. His first outing has resulted in a real gem.