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Wah-Wah [DVD] [2006]
 
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Wah-Wah [DVD] [2006]

DVD ~ Gabriel Byrne
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
RRP: £19.99
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Frequently Bought Together

Wah-Wah [DVD] [2006] + The Wah-Wah Diaries: The Making of a Film + Withnail And I [1986] [DVD]
Price For All Three: £14.20

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Wah-Wah [DVD] [2006]
93% buy the item featured on this page:
Wah-Wah [DVD] [2006] 3.7 out of 5 stars (9)
£4.98
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Product details

  • Actors: Gabriel Byrne, Emily Watson, Julie Walters, Nicholas Hoult, Miranda Richardson
  • Directors: Richard E. Grant
  • Format: Anamorphic, PAL
  • Language English
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 15
  • Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. UK Ltd
  • DVD Release Date: 17 Sep 2007
  • Run Time: 95 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B000IZJ3UA
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 17,010 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

Reviews

Synopsis

A 14-year-old British boy returns to his home in colonial Swaziland to find that his father has remarried a free-spirited American woman that he has known for six weeks. A semi-autobiographical coming of age story by actor Richard E. Grant (WITHNAIL AND I), WAH-WAH is set in the late 1960s in Swaziland, as the country is set to be handed back by the British to the native people. Ralph Compton is an 11-year-old boy who witnesses his mother's adultery with his father's best friend. His parents subsequently divorce and Ralph is sent to boarding school. His father Harry descends into alcoholism as--allied to the betrayal by his wife and best friend--his position as Minister of Education is set to end with the onset of independence. Ralph returns home at the age of 14 to find that Harry has married an American ex-air hostess called Ruby, who he has known for six weeks. Ruby ridicules the snobbery of the colonials and forges a bond with Harry. Grant's film is a moving account of the breakdown of a family, juxtaposed with the breakdown of the British Empire.

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Customer Reviews

9 Reviews
5 star:
 (2)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (3)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.7 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wah Wah - the best movie, 1 Oct 2006
By JR (Surrey, UK) - See all my reviews
I thought this film was the most absorbing, sad and funny film I have watched for a long long time - very sensitively done and portraying family life in the "raw" ... full of emotion and a flash back to a time when life was lived in such a simple behind doors way - a reminder of part of a history which must never be allowed to happen ever again. A marvelous first film produced by the multi-talented and fabulous Richard E Grant. A must-see film for all Richard's many fans plus everyone else of course. Great acting by all the actors involved and all expertly directed by Richard. If you read the Wah Wah diaries you will see how 6 years of Richard's life was taken up in the making of it. Joan R
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Enchanting, 22 Jan 2007
I wasn't sure this film would be up to much more than a very good English drama and I was very pleasantly surprised. I really became involved from the opening scene and by the end felt like I knew the characters personally. Thanks to the subtle qualities of this film, watching this film is much like reading a really really good book.
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16 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars "It's all just a lot of Wah-Wah", 19 Nov 2006
By M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
There's a lot of drunken and shrill shrieking and wailing in Wah-Wah, Richard E. Grant's strangely titled movie about the British Diplomatic core in 1960s Swaziland -- the last British colonial holdout in Africa. Gravitating between whimsy and dysfunction and perhaps combining both, this rather slow moving melodrama tells the story of Ralf Compton (played as a preteen by Zachary Fox and later by Nicholas Hoult) who is forced into a corner by his dysfunctional parents Lauren (Miranda Richardson) and Harry (Gabriel Byrne).

Lauren has been having an affair and she can't stand the boozy Harry, neither can she stand living in this isolated outpost. Ralph clearly loves his mum and despite her carrying on, the affection seems more or less mutual, but she doesn't love him enough to stay. Working as the minister of education, Harry's a nice guy when he's sober, but his wife's infidelity and fears about his post-colonial job prospects make him an impossibly mean drunk.

After Lauren runs off with her lover, Harry gets worse. For the good of all concerned, the resentful Ralph is shipped off to boarding school. A few years later Ralph returns and salvation comes in the form of Ruby (Emily Watson) a brash and trashy American airline hostess, whom Harry failed to tell Ralph that he married. After a shaky start, Ruby and Ralph eventually hit it off; she's determined to connect with her reluctant and unenthusiastic stepson.

Ruby's clever impropriety and her distain for all the colonial stuffiness she sees around her, spawn the film's title, her term for silly-sounding English turns of phrase like toodly pip, to Ruby "it's all just a bunch of Wah-Wah. Ruby eventually becomes Ralph's best ally against the madness - of which more is to come. Harry's drinking increases and he goes on blinding rages, Lauren comes back, Harry gets the part of Sir Lancelot in the local production of Camelot, and all are anxious to celebrate the arrival of Princess Anne and the country's impending independence.

As Ralf and Ruby stick it to the pretentious colonial gentry and the political turmoil begins to sway around them, everyone else amuses himself or herself by taking tea on the veranda, drinking to excess, having affairs, and joining the musical theater troupe - everything is all very plumy and stiff-upper-lip British. The acting is uniformly strong - Byrne, Richardson and Watson are all lovely to watch, with Julie Walters doing a nice supporting turn as long-suffering neighbor Gwen, whose husband has absconded with Lauren.

There's some gorgeous scenery in Wah-Wah, the whole movie is constantly bathed in vibrant and rich colours, with Grant really nailing the late 1960's period detail, and you really get a sense of how silly these ex-pat colonialists were, as they tried desperately to hold on to their Anglo ways.

The main problem with Wah-Wah is the definitive lack of story definition - there isn't enough heft to the story to pull everything together. Watching it is like trying to accumulate a riddle that's missing its pieces: You can see the outline of a story, and some shapes fit neatly together - family dysfunction, adultery, the effects of alcoholism and political volatility - but there are undeniable holes.

Characters keep appearing and disappearing with reason or much explanation and the movie ends up a bit of a mish-mash, constantly going around in circles, with an ending that, while fortuitous and sad, seems to be hurriedly tacked on as though it's an after-thought. Mike Leonard November 06.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars disapointing
I looked forward to this dvd as i had enjoyed richard e grants work, and purchased this dvd on the strenght of this. Read more
Published 13 days ago by J. Jackson

3.0 out of 5 stars Wah Wah
" Wah Wah" is a fictionalised account of the actor Richard E. Grant upbringing in colonial Swaziland in the 1960s, and what an amazing upbringing it was. Read more
Published 1 month ago by DC Thornbray

2.0 out of 5 stars Upsetting but Well Acted
I have to say that this was a good little film as far as the cast is concerned. It's really interesting to see how Nicholas Hoult has aged and matured since About A Boy(2002)... Read more
Published on 5 Jun 2007 by P. J. Aspel

3.0 out of 5 stars Wah Wah
A sad little vignette in the history of the British Empire. Well acted tho and lovely scenery.
Published on 4 Dec 2006 by Jennifer

4.0 out of 5 stars fantastic
I was away from home travelling on my gap year when i saw it. it was a really "bristish" film. very to the point and very moving as alot of it seemed so close to home having grown... Read more
Published on 24 Oct 2006 by A. Moore

5.0 out of 5 stars Wah Wah Wow!
A beautiful and quaint view of life how it was in pre-independent Swaziland. I can vouch for this as I grew up in the same era and went to the same school as Richard in Swaziland... Read more
Published on 21 Oct 2006 by J. V. Oshea

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