A brilliant film that helped define a genre

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Wah-Wah (Richard E. Grant, 2005) is a delightful film about writer-director Grant's childhood during the final throes of colonial Swaziland. Balancing fraughtness - as his alter-ego's mother (Miranda Richardon) leaves and his father (Gabriel Byrne) descends into alcoholism - with superbly judged comic passages, it transports the viewer into the head of the young protagonist, perfectly articulating his feelings without the need for speechifying or voice-over. Such a feat is testament to the economy and precision of the script, Grant's subtle but expressive direction and Nicholas Hoult's excellent performance as the 14-year-old Ralph Compton. That Hoult can hold his own against Emily Watson, the most gifted dramatic performer of her generation, is as high praise as I can think of. Watson is ideal, as ever, playing the boy's ballsy American step-mum, who's threatening to turn high society on its ear if she can stand the scotch-swilling company long enough. The film does suffer from a dearth of geographic context in the mid-section and has some structural problems in the second half that seem to saddle it with several false endings, but it's clever, subtle and formidably unsentimental, with superb acting across the board. Its more painful exchanges have the unmistakable ring of truth and grim memory, and there's a great set of scenes in which Hoult sees A Clockwork Orange and starts idly apeing McDowell's eyeliner-wearing sociopath. I really liked it.

This film is a highly entertaining view of a dysfunctional family from the viewpoint of the teenaged son. It is said to be an autobiographical memory of the writer and director, Richard E. Grant. I didn't recognize the name, but once I started to read a bit about the film, I found that Grant is a fairly well-known character actor. The part most readily recognized by myself was that of the tall, thin, disapproving butler in Gosford Park. You might be interested in his biographical page on this site.The story takes place late 1960's Swaziland and climaxes with the British withdrawal from that colony. Ralph is the only child of Lauren and Harry Compton, and theirs is not a happy marriage. As a matter of fact, the film begins with a scene in which an eleven year old Ralph is supposedly asleep in the backseat of a car in which his mother and a neighbor are having sex in the front seat. She soon leaves her family and runs off with the neighbor. Ralph's father consoles himself with alcohol - it seems that practically every English adult in the colony has a drinking problem. Ralph constantly battles with his father and is soon shipped off to boarding school. The story shifts two years and teenaged Ralph who has just experienced his growth spurt returns home on vacation to find that his father has married an American air hostess. Ralph, at first, rejects Ruby but then begins to admire the out-spoken Yank. The title of the film comes from Ruby as she describes the supercilious talk of the British as, "Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah." Grant has accumulated a superior group of veteran actors to portray the major characters in the piece. Gabriel Byrne plays an alcoholic father to perfection being both a hurtful drunk and a loving father. Byrne has the talent to realistically inhabit these two opposite personalities. Miranda Richardson is the perfect distant mother. Julie Walters plays the wife of the man with whom Ralph's mother has the affair. Walters adds a welcome spot of humor as a woman cheated upon but able to muddle through with generous helpings of whisky. Ruby is played by Emily Watson whose pixyish look and behavior fits the Yank like a glove.Ralph is played by two talented young actors. Zachary Fox is Ralph at age eleven - an intelligent boy beginning to discover that his parents - especially his father - have feet of clay. Ralph at age thirteen is played by Nicholas Hoult. He has an extraordinarily unusual look about him and is in that awkward stage of physical development enabling him to make the role his own. The trivia on IMDb is that he was originally set to play Ralph at both ages, but his growth spurt caused him to be too large for the younger part. That growth spurt gives his a great look for this movie.Even though we get an insightful look at the British colonists and their attitude toward themselves and the native Africans, this is not a social or political drama. It is and excellent family drama. The times and setting are simply icing on the cake.

Richard E Grant's film about his formative years being brought up in Swaziland is fascinating for both what it shows and what it conceals. It is a stunning portrayal of an only child brought up by feuding parents. It shows his parents turmoil in dealing with their required Upper Class Victorian behaviour - even though this is the 1960s - and their frustration at being unable to act their true feelings. It made sense to me of how people in authority who have to behave in such formalised ways to give their roles gravitas end up sacrificing their true desires. But desires come through. His mother turns to having affairs and his Father to alcoholism and the only child stuck in the middle of this is also dis-empowered. He is shuttled off to boarding school and the country of Swaziland and he each find their independence. But there's a real twist in this tale. My wife tells me that Richard E Grant has a brother. Can this be true? If so it means the film makes no sense. The whole basis of the film is the tugging Oedipul triad that destroys them all before each is reborn as is the country with a new identity. You'd better go see it too and see if you can work out why he left the 4th leg off the table?

I grew up in Swaziland five years after the period in which this film was set. Although I was a white boy growing up in Africa, and went to the same school as Richard E Grant, my experience was nothing at all like this film. Clearly, independence from Great Britain had a hugely positive impact on the country. The only affecting scenes are those showing the beautiful landscape and the climactic independence celebrations. And I got a small thrill out of recognising locations from my youth: the (presumably recreated) Cinelux cinema and the hot pool (commonly known as the cuddle puddle). All the characters in this film are loathsome. Are we really supposed to care about these pith-helmeted dinosaurs of the colonial period? Luvvies prancing around under the African sun? This is how Richard E Grant decides to pay tribute to the country he supposedly loves? This really is, as one of the characters remarks, all too hoity-toity and a load of old Wah- Wah.