Netflix drops trailer for Wham! documentary but we hear the doco could be a little grittier

By creammagazine, June 19, 2023

Netflix has dropped the first trailer for its documentary on ’80s pop music duo, Wham! with the doco set to stream on July 5.

If you grew up a teenager in the ’80s, you’d recall Wham! were one of the biggest bands in the world – at one stage the biggest, superseding the likes of A-ha, Bon Jovi and even Duran Duran to the top-end of the pop charts.

With the highs came a few lows, and alongside the music came some big-deal breakthroughs – such as Wham! becoming the first western music act to perform in China and break that lucrative market.

The documentary follows lead singer George Michael and partner-in-rhyme Andrew Ridgeley on a rollercoaster four-year journey between 1982 and 1986. It sees them meeting up in primary school, going on to form a band, then going on to become global superstars delivering hits that included Bad Boys, Young Guns, Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, Freedom, and of course Last Christmas.

“Success was so much more than I had ever dreamed of,” says Michael (who in a sad twist of irony passed away on Christmas Day, 2016). “And with your best mate – it was just absolutely magical.”

Given that much of the documentary has been put together from fan scrapbooks curated by Ridgely’s mother it may come across as cheesy for the most part, or might end up an over-glossed, unaffecting affair.

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Beneath the surface of their shiny day-glo facade, there were problems brewing – including the duo’s battles with their initial record company, Innervision, and George Michael having to remain in the closet for the sake of keeping straight female fans happy – yet much of the darker stuff has been left out of the doco; stuff which would have made it more riveting to watch.

Occasionally, in interview, George does open up but even then his ‘openness’ sounds kind of muffled.

Still, the film manages to capture the fun superfice of the 1980s pop scene, a time when music possessed a certain structure and self-indulgence that made the stars themselves appear bigger than real life.

And Wham! were a duo who truly made it big.

Antonino Tati