Wah-Wah [DVD]

Features

• Type: DVD
• Studio: Alliance Films
• Language(s): french

Actor Richard E. Grant makes his directorial debut with this beguiling, semi-autobiographical dramatic comedy set in Swaziland at the end of British colonialism. Gabriel Byrne plays a member of the reigning British government, a cabal of hard-drinking, sexually duplicitous upper-crust types living in the thick heat of the African desert. Miranda Richardson plays Harry's wife, who runs off with another man. It's all seen through they eyes of the son who then comes home from boarding school to learn that his dad has married a feisty American (Emma Watson) and has developed a full-blown drinking problem. Meanwhile the British government is preparing to grant the country its independence, and the club mounts a production of CAMELOT to celebrate the arrival of Princess Margaret. Grant captures the anxiety-fueled perspective of a child forced to witness debauched adult behavior and the African backdrop is vividly etched (it's filmed entirely in Swaziland). As one might expect in a movie directed by a respected British actor, the cast is peerless: Byrne delivers a highly complex performance, veering from harrowing scenes of alcoholic violence to stiff-upper-lipped affectation; Watson breathes a wealth of dimension into a role that might have been a caricature of American crassness; Zachary Fox plays the pre-boarding school version of Ralph; and Nicholas Hoult plays Ralph's older incarnation.