George Michael was 11 and Andrew Ridgeley 12 when they met at school. And they were best friends before becoming 1980s singing stars. Netflix devotes a deliciously nostalgic and very informative documentary to them.
Archival videos, the voice of George Michael, that of Andrew Ridgeley, former teachers who testify, etc., Wham! is, beyond the documentary on the cult duo of the 1980s, a tribute to these 18-year-old British youngsters who brilliantly engulfed themselves in the wave of pop music with Young Guns (Go for It) and after, careless Whisper Or Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.
All great success is a mixture of hard work, faith, talent and luck (in no particular order) and Wham! shows many details of these elements as well as the return of the stick – the reviews were bloody when it was released Fan-tas-tictheir first album.
With Wham!director Chris Smith does in the complacent – the documentary series Arnold, also on Netflix, is in the same vein – Andrew Ridgeley having been interviewed for the occasion. Everything is smooth, clean, inspiring, sanitized – including the passage on the financial embezzlement that deprived them of a lot of money or the hidden homosexuality at the time of George Michael – and abundantly fluorescent!
In four years of existence, Wham! established themselves as a group with the rapid success typical of the 1980s before George Michael became a solo star. And as for Arnoldwe learn little, the analysis is left aside, but this documentary looks like we listen to a compilation of hits that populated adolescence and early adulthood of Generation X.
Wham! is available on the Netfilx platform.
Rating: 3 out of 5