Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum
56
Adam
39
Adventures of Power
66
Afterschool
73
Amreeka
49
Antichrist
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The
71
Big Fan
65
Black Dynamite
76
Bliss
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star
76
Broken Embraces
70
Bronson
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
60
Collapse
82
Cove, The
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The
53
Dare
50
Defamation
67
Departures
70
Earth Days
85
Education, An
55
Endgame
88
Fantastic Mr. Fox
31
Fix
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Horse Boy, The
74
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
43
Little Traitor, The
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
46
Love Hurts
84
Maid, The
45
Mammoth
75
Messenger, The
55
Missing Person, The
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
48
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
26
Oh My God
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Red Cliff
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
65
Skin
41
Splinterheads
42
Staten Island
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
58
Storm
82
Sun, The
49
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73
That Evening Sun
61
Trucker
49
Turning Green
83
U2 3D
45
Uncertainty
67
Visual Acoustics
32
War on Kids
67
Way We Get By, The
65
Wedding Song, The
xx
White on Rice
59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
Woman in Berlin, A
43
Women in Trouble
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Wah-Wah
EMAILPRINTSamuel Goldwyn Films LLC / Roadside Attractions
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 25 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 7 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Foreign
Written by: Richard E. Grant
Directed by: Richard E. Grant
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 12, 2006
DVD: November 21, 2006
Running Time: minutes, Color
Origin: UK / France / South Africa
Summary
RATING: R for some language and brief sexuality
Starring Gabriel Byrne, Miranda Richardson, Emily Watson, Julie Walters, Nicholas Hoult, Celia Imrie, Julian Wadham, and Fenella Woolgar
Acclaimed actor Richard E. Grant's semi-autobiographical "coming-of-age at the end of an age" story is told through the eyes of young Ralph Compton (Hoult). Set during the last gasp of the British Empire in Swaziland, South East Africa, in 1969, the plot focuses on the dysfunctional Compton family whose gradual disintegration mirrors the end of British rule. (Samuel Goldwyn Films)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Empire David Hughes
An unforced, engaging and surprisingly incisive account of the disintegration of British rule in Africa.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
The film is so well acted -- by Byrne, who makes Harry's internalized agonies and continuously carried torch for his ex-wife touching, and by Watson and Hoult -- that its more cloying moments, including a staged version of the musical "Camelot" (which is too long), are a moot point.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
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 Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Grant is a fine actor ("Withnail and I," "Gosford Park") and, although he doesn't appear in Wah-Wah, his spiritedness as a performer carries through to some of the others in his cast.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Thanks to Grant's script and direction, the exotic Swaziland location (a film first) and an engaging cast, this smartly crafted drama radiates a gently comic pulse.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
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 Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
The fascinating aspect of the rambling and involving film is how Ralph and this no-nonsense dame who married Dad become confederates.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Jeannette Catsoulis
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 Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
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 Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
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 Full Review >Variety Derek Elley
Flavorsome performances by a seasoned cast, held in check by Grant's traditional but well-crafted, always cinematic direction.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Never less than good but it's also never quite great.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Connie Ogle
Wah-Wah's characters are wonderfully human and flawed and still capable of stirring empathy, which is appealing. But in the end, the film isn't saying much at all.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Though the raw material is juicy stuff, the details and the larger picture never come together and the cast is uneven.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Though far from expert filmmaking - visual clichés fly thick and fast - the movie has a swooning feel for the stark beauty of the African kingdom in which it was shot.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
As in so many films directed by actors, there's a generosity shown to performance that results in many lifelike moments.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
As coming of age stories go, Wah-Wah does little to distinguish itself.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Rob Nelson
That the film is semi- autobiographical for caustic actor-turned-writer-director Richard E. Grant helps explain its severely, sometimes laughably bitter tone.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein
To label the parents in Wah-Wah dysfunctional doesn't adequately describe their wildly inappropriate behavior.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves
There isn't enough heft to the story to pull everything together. Watching it is like trying to assemble a puzzle that's missing pieces.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
This is a hokey, old-fashioned melodrama in which the actors scream more often than necessary.
Read Full Review >New York Post V.A. Musetto
The story lacks focus. The senses blur as wives and ex-wives come and go, and Harry regularly falls off the wagon, only to reform the next day.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 7 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Chad S. gave it a7:
Lauren(Miranda Richardson) wants to leave Swaziland because she's bored with life in the outback. Only incidentially does this British subject, this conscienceless woman of privilege, give something back to her adopted homeland. Lauren's gift is that she gets lost, if only for a little while. Her disdain for Africa seems so manifest, plot contrivance can be the only explanation for her return. "Wah Wah" is a film about people shut-off from the bigger picture. Through their eyes, Swaziland is simply home, and not the spoils that colonization entails. Even a nice American woman(or is she an "Ugly American" with manners) like Ruby(Emily Watson), who probably should know better(she lived through the Civil Rights Movement), never acknowledges her role of being an unwanted interloper. "Wah Wah" documents the end of British rule in the African colony, and thankfully, its subjects never express any remorse for their occupation. It would've felt tacked on, dishonest; because "Wah Wah" is about people whose arrogance has such a practiced sheen and polish, they turned their hubris into class. Their time in Swaziland may have been "Camelot" to them, but to the indigenous people, natives who Ralph(Nicholas Hoult) refers to as the subject of a National Geographic shoot, they probably suppressed the instinct to "kill a lot" behind their obedient, pacific faces when called upon to perform for their colonizers.
Jono N. gave it a9:
Delightful, engrossing and thorougly entertaining.
Robert I. gave it a7:
Touches you emotionally in a way that an old-fashioned film can do: Swaziland becomes a metaphor for global change in the lives of strong characters.
Wendy S. gave it a9:
I was very moved by this account of a childhood very similar to my own. The views of Swaziland were breath taking and the music was wonderful.
Daniel B. gave it a3:
I'm afraid I must agree with the NY Post on this one; this movie really needed to be slowed down somehow. It's nearly impossible to sympathize with any of the characters, including young Ralph.
