Wah-Wah Critic Reviews

Both acidly funny and very moving.Read the full review

Wah-Wah has a sequence, based on old newsreels, in which the flag is lowered and the sun sets on another bit of the empire. Odd how many critics have felt the whole movie should be about this. I don't see why. The story is about people who lived closed lives, and a film about them would necessarily give independence only a supporting role.Read the full review

Wah-Wah can't sustain the mastery of its superior first hour, but it maintains a core of truth that sets it apart from less-convincing depictions of boys becoming men.Read the full review

Flavorsome performances by a seasoned cast, held in check by Grant's traditional but well-crafted, always cinematic direction.Read the full review

Grant's unblinking but sympathetic depiction of this emotionally unhinged world makes the viewer feel like an illicit, enlightened gawker, and it has the enormous fringe benefit of fine performers, including Richardson, who puts endearing vigor into the adulterous Lauren, and Julie Walters, Ralph's aunt, who tells the boy her frequent tipsiness is a recurring case of "sunstroke."Read the full review

Veteran actor Richard E. Grant makes his writing and directing debut with Wah-Wah, a startling portrait of his own startling and unusual childhood, growing up in Swaziland in the waning days of the British Empire in Africa.Read the full review

Yet for all its studied snobbery and brittle entitlement, the film is never mean-spirited: even Ralph's monstrous parents are treated with more compassion than they deserve. Clearly, Mr. Grant's memories are more fond than bitter - even if the same probably can't be said of the Swazis.Read the full review

An overdeveloped coming-of-age potboiler.Read the full review

To label the parents in Wah-Wah dysfunctional doesn't adequately describe their wildly inappropriate behavior.Read the full review