Netflix's New 'Wham!' Documentary Wants to Hit That High (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)

In case you were missing them, we’ve got a new streaming documentary to tell a buzzy story from pop culture past that’s also endorsed by the central subjects and estates and fundamentally uncritical of any of the information they offer – but this time it’s about WHAM!, so we can’t complain too much. The band featured George Michael and some exceptional hairdos, but apart from that, you might wonder what motive other than nostalgia there’d be to investigate the history of a garishly poppy British duo.

Thankfully, none other than Elton John sums up the evergreen appeal of the band in archive footage from the 1985 Ivor Novello Awards, Britain’s foremost composition and songwriting awards, where Michael would scoop up his first trophy. As Elton tells us, what a culture dismisses as disposable, “teenybopper” fluff actually ends up aging better than the trendier music of the time doing the dismissing. Once we shrug off our cynicism and embrace pop that compromises none of its bouncy sentimentality, we can appreciate the craft that went into it, as well as how it directly, authentically speaks to a youth whose perspective has always been undermined.

The political value of WHAM!’s discography may be slighter than many other musicians of the time, but it does have a rich cultural context, one that director Chris Smith (American Movie, Fyre) is clearly capable of dissecting but that WHAM! still feels unable to mine. Is it enough that we get to hear from Andrew Ridgely, the other half of a band dominated by George Michael’s star power? Or that there are reels of restored film showing every corner of their highly publicized lives, or that we’re reminded that, good lord, WHAM! had a hell of a good string of bangers? Absolutely it’s enough, meaning Smith’s film is a suitably breezy, affecting, and attractive watch.