Wah-Wah

Forget the sniping review on this site. This is a labour of love and is the true story of a young boy growing up in end-of-the-colonial-era Swaziland. His loving but alcoholic father, his faithless mother and the various other upper crust Brits are bang on the button. The film was made in a very short time, came in under budget and gives us some delightful performances. Both the boys, Zac Fox and Nick Holt, are excellent. Gabriel Byrne, Emily Watson, Celia Imrie and National Treasure Julie Walters are great. The story is told economically in just 90 or so minutes. The scenery is beautiful. What a pleasant change from over praised short-arse Hollywood 'icons' running away from explosions. Forget MI3.Go see this. Then read Richard's book 'The Wah-wah diaries.'

Saw Wah-Wah at the Edinburgh International Film Festival – this is a really wonderful film. The story is told from the point of view of Ralph, a child witnessing the breakdown of his parent's marriage and dealing with his father's alcoholism and hasty remarriage. Both the colonial life and the adult relationships are seen, unflatteringly, from Ralph's perspective, and this could easily have been just another caricature of colonial decadence and the end of empire. In fact, despite the sombre story, it has humour and warmth as well as emotional impact. It also looks stunning: it is hard to believe this is Richard Grant's first film. All the cast give strong performances, even if most of them are hardly playing against type: Celia Imry could probably do the "upper-class bitch" and Julie Walters the "blowsy but good-hearted neighbour" in their sleep: but the core relationship between Ralph and his father Harry, played by Gabriel Byrne, is just electrifying. Byrne is totally convincing as the dedicated colonial administrator whose unresolved feelings for his first wife and fears for his future after independence drive him to alcoholism and nearly wreck his second marriage (to the also excellent Emily Watson). According to the press the film has yet to find a distributor: let's hope it is quickly picked up – this is ten times better than any of this summer's blockbusters, and deserves to be seen.

Richard E Grant's "autobiopic" is an illustration of Tolstoy's adage that while happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Grant's childhood in Swaziland as the son of a top colonial administrator (in education) could have been idyllic, but the idyll was shattered by his mother's infidelity and eventual desertion of the family and his father's severe alcoholism. Yet Grant could not stop loving either of them, and in the movie he seems to be saying, "yes, it hurt at the time, but I understand – and forgive." So despite the trauma, Grant gives us a fair account of his parents, lightly disguised as the Comptons, of their love for each other and their love for him.

The second striking feature of the movie is the portrait of a small but immensely snobbish colonial society that was about to disappear. Appearances are everything so clandestine adultery is condoned but divorce very much disapproved of. Outsiders (for example Harry Compton's new American wife Ruby) are scarcely tolerated. This stern moral code was hardly needed to impress the natives, who were polygamous. The choice of "Camelot" as the entertainment put on by the denizens of the white social club for the Independence celebrations is ironically appropriate – for some of the whites it was indeed Camelot, and now it was about to end.

Another theme of Grant's is growing up, generally a painful experience with or without dysfunctional parents. Here he is greatly helped by a fine performance from Nicholas Hoult as the 14 year old Richard ("Ralph" in the film). Miranda Richardson as the errant mother and Gabriel Byrnes as the father are also excellent and there are strong performances from the supporting cast, particularly Julie Walters as a deserted wife and Celia Imrie as the impossibly snobbish High Commissioner's wife. I'm not sure why, but Emily Watson's Ruby was only so-so. The people of Swaziland don't get much of a look-in – this is white mischief after all, but the actor who plays the warm-hearted local doctor (John Matshikiza?) should get an honorable mention.

Since independence Swaziland has not done too well; according to Wikipedia it now has 39% of the adult population with HIV and the world's lowest life expectancy -32.6 years. The combined rule of the present king and "Great She-Elephant" (his mother) has not been a conspicuous success. The colonial days, which took the light form of a British Protectorate, must seem like Camelot even to the Swazis. This movie seems to have captured the atmosphere of the time as well as the pains of growing up.

Richard E. Grant's mostly autobiographical film tells the story of a boy growing up in Swaziland amidst the end of British colonisation, his parents' harrowing divorce and his father's destructive alcoholism.

Before the film I was promised it would make me cry, laugh and be totally delighted with what I saw.

The tears come from some very moving moments between Ralph (Nicholas Hoult) and his father as they try to maintain a relationship despite his father's drinking problems, depicted by a very frightening and convincing Gabriel Byrne. Ralph's struggle to accept his father's new wife, played by Emily Watson, also gives us a good dose of emotional moments, of which this film is certainly not short!

The laughter comes mostly from some moments of brilliantly over-the-top British snobbery and Emily Watson's spot-on mockery of it. Incidentally, this is what gives the film its title - "Wah-Wah" being her imitation of upper class speech.

And the delightfulness comes from everything about the film - a sentimental and touching story set amongst beautiful scenery, with a lovely score and stunning performances from all the cast. Having spent 5 years on this film, it is clearly very personal to Grant and it seems all that time was worth it. The promise was fulfilled - delight, laughter and tears.

Truly fantastic movie. I went to the world premiere last night at Edinburgh Film Festival and was blown away. As much as I like Richard E. Grant, I must confess that I was expecting a rather indulgent art-house auto-biopic. Instead, what we got was a brilliant, superbly paced, wonderfully entertaining feature film that held the audience to the last scene. The first 10 minutes are a little slow, but from then on Grant never puts a foot wrong.

"Wah-Wah" has the right blend of comic situations, gritty family conflict, stunning African scenery and caricatures of latter-day British imperial pretensions to entertain, engage and amaze.

Nicholas Hoult shows that the intensity and charisma evidenced in "About A Boy" were no childhood fluke, while Gabriel Byrne brings a perfect mix of menace and charm to encapsulate the contradictions of Grant's father figure. Special kudos goes to Emily Watson, whose on-screen presence is radiant and lively, rather akin to Rachel Griffiths in "Six Feet Under".

With an assured debut like this, Grant should soon be able to give up those wretched Argos ads for good!