"Wah-Wah" is worth watching because it paints an intriguing portrait of the British Empire's final days in Swaziland and the acting is very good throughout. The story is supposedly based on Richard E. Grant's bizarre childhood and is at times shocking, such as when his alcoholic father tries to shoot him for no apparent reason. However, while there are lots of interesting little anecdotes from Mr. Grant's youth, the story as a whole is not very well tied together. For example, at one point Ralph's mother is locked out of the house, and it appeared that this was her being finally rejected by both Ralph and his father. However, a few scenes later she pops in again, and it's not clear how they reached this state of affairs. A second example comes at the end of the film. While the two young ladies I watched the film with cried at the end when the father tells Ralph that he never stopped loving his mother, I didn't feel particularly touched. In fact I didn't even understand the comment. At no other point does the movie ever convincingly suggest that Ralph's father was so enamoured with his first wife, and the film never shows anything even remotely appealing about her character.
