Wham!, the British pop duo composed of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, debuted in the early 80s, and the decade’s cultural landscape would never be the same. Like most people, I know them primarily for their ubiquitous holiday hit “Last Christmas.” Even so, I was excited to watch Chris Smith’s 2023 documentary Wham! and learn more about a staple of British pop music, especially when it comes to George Michael, who I mostly knew as a significant gay music icon.
From the get-go, the film crafts images of Michael and Ridgeley as playful, silly young men aiming to center their careers around fun without sacrificing success. It explores their earliest history when they met at 11- (Michael) and 12-year-old (Ridgeley) on Michael’s first day at a new school. After a failed attempt in their mid-teens to start a band with other kids, the two stuck together and kept writing songs. Finally, they got a record deal and put out their first single – “Wham Rap.” At this time, they had added two women, Shirlie Holliman, and Dee C. Lee, to the mix, but it’s clear that the focus of the music (and the documentary) remained on the two men. Despite their high hopes for “Wham Rap,” it failed to make the top 100 songs on the UK chart. Their next single only reached #42, but when things were looking bleak, they received a call from the popular British television series Top of the Pops, asking them to perform a fill-in spot for an act that had dropped out. As Ridgeley states in narration following that performance, “Wham! had arrived.” Soon, “Wham! mania” would become an infectious phenomenon.
While slick, well-paced, and positive, the documentary doesn’t resemble a cloying hagiography. We hear from the band themselves; they control their image here like a memoir. Ridgeley’s mother kept extensive scrapbooks of her son and Michael’s careers in Wham! the film uses animated versions of the books to provide chronology and visual structure. This approach helps keep us grounded in the history of the band.
Although the documentary may not reveal a profound philosophy on music, the record industry, or the lives of the duo, it offers a hearty slice of cultural knowledge on its subject. I don’t mean this dismissively, but it pleasantly passes the time of its hour-and-a-half run, mainly because the men at its core are so engaging and likable. They make you want to continue watching the chart of their success, even if the doc is more magazine-glossy than cinematic.
The documentary touches on Michael’s sexuality, especially his coming out to Ridgeley. However, it isn’t such a focus that his story becomes reductive; we get a well-rounded portrait of Michael’s place as a songwriter, performer, and gay man. We understand how his orientation affected his experience of the spotlight, and the film handles it respectfully, allowing the archive voice-over of Michael to express his own feelings about it.
For Wham! fans, the doc covers the creation of hits like “Careless Whisper” and “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” showing how the duo, particularly Michael, wished to maintain creative control and make work they could be proud of. Even if, like me, you’ve not been very engaged with Wham!’s music before, there’s still a lot of fun to be had here. It’s hard not to enjoy the journey of these two young men as they navigate stardom while attempting to hold onto some internalized authenticity. A lot has changed in popular music since the 80s, but much stays the same. From The Beatles to BTS, fans love to come out to concerts in loyal masses for their favorite musical icons. The fans of Wham! were no different, and the film helps us see why the band built up such devotion.
Impressively enough, Wham!’s time as a band covered the duo’s late teens and early 20s. The two were discovering what it means to be adults as they came to terms with stardom. For one thing, they didn’t make much money off their music and thus didn’t maintain the rich-and-famous life many expected they’d have. The documentary helps reveal the people behind the flashy, polished images and shows how they personally struggled even as they met with fantastic success.
It would be easy to write off Wham! as teen idol fare, but the film illustrates how much work, particularly lead writer and producer George Michael, put into crafting their tracks. Although pop usually doesn’t receive recognition as “high art” like other genres, it’s difficult to walk away from this documentary without the sense that these musicians really cared about making something good out of their work. I can say the same thing for Chris Smith as a documentarian.
Rating: 8.5/10
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