This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Chris Smith and Netflix have been a match made in heaven. The talented documentarian has been bringing hit after hit to the streamer, outlining the Fyre and College Admissions calamities, giving us an intimate look at Robert Downey Jr. and his dad, and unboring us during the pandemic with The Tiger King. Smith’s eye for a story drew him to Andrew Ridgeley, convincing George Michael’s best friend to give Smith all the history and documents from their incredible pop history. Wham! Bam! Thank you mam! Sorry, thank you Chris Smith.
Wham’s beginnings started at Bushy Meads School in 1975. As if it were fate, 12 year old Andrew Ridgeley volunteered to be the welcoming buddy to new student Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou. The two became fast friends, bonding over their shared interest in music, and shared dream to become pop stars. And so starts an incredible ascension to fame that tests the bounds of friendship between the two men as they get more and more popular.
Smith smartly realizes the story here is about the two friends, Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael, and as such stops the movie as the band splits in 1986. The documentarian blends George’s quotes at the time with Andrew’s 20/20 Hindsight interview in the present day. The most interesting aspect of the doc is how Ridgeley deals with the fact that he’s Salieri to Michael’s Mozart. With time, Andrew clearly has found the narrative he wants to tell: being the supportive more emotionally grounded friend to help his more insecure but brilliant best friend achieve greatness. If you’re listening closely though, you can feel a pang of, not vindictiveness, but jealousy as Andrew gloss’s over a lot of the details about his creative marginalization as Wham got more and more popular.
Those early 20s are some of the most formative years for any person, and watching the two men go through their growth in front of a camera is fascinating to see, as momma Ridgeley scrapbooked Wham’s story, beginning to end. As we go through Wham’s discography, Smith parallels the songs with the constant evolution of the friendship between George and Andrew. The trials get more personal as the two rapidly climb the charts, like figuring out how to tell the world George was gay. These tests challenged the friendship between the two men, to the inevitable breaking point in 1986. What’s sneakily lovely about Wham! is how adult and amicable all of the conflict was compared to other messy breakups from other bands. For a couple British kids in their 20s, their ability to handle their business behind the scenes makes for less drama, but for Ridgeley and Michael, makes them look cool to a new generation of garage band friends looking to become the next big thing.
I’ve liked Wham! for a long time now, and was super excited to see how they came up with their best stuff. I will say though, Mr. Ridgeley, I admire your attempt at artistic reclamation. But as Keegan Michael Key exclaimed, George Michael was an OG, because you were there one day, and than bang! You were never heard from again.