What Netflix's Wham! documentary left out about George Michael
The only thing that outnumbers the awards George Michael collected over the years is how many films and documentaries were made about his life before he died, not to mention those that were made after too.
So in Netflix's new Wham! documentary, director Chris Smith decided to focus solely on Michael's early years with the band instead, precisely for that reason.
"This movie is about Wham!," he told Radio Times. "It's about that time period. So it wasn't about everything that happened after. It was really just about that. I mean there can be many other films on their lives going forward, but this was the one that we were focused on."
That does make sense, at least to some degree. Andrew Ridgeley's part in this story is indeed overlooked more often than not with many films skipping over the Wham! years to focus on George Michael The Superstar™.
But to focus just on this and this alone does a disservice to the story as a whole, especially when the film itself doesn't go particularly deep in the first place.
Getty Images
The scrapbook format is cute, and it's interesting to hear about Wham!'s formative years from Ridgeley himself. What's missing though is the truth behind the joy that George and Andrew enjoyed from way up high on top of the charts.
"I think it's a beautiful story about friendship," Smith told Radio Times. "There's something really life affirming about this story."
And that's great, but it's also far from realistic, especially where George Michael's mental health struggles are concerned.
Admittedly, there is some mention of how being closeted in the public eye affected Michael. In his own words, he admitted in this doc that the end of Wham! didn't have much to do with Wham! itself:
"The turning point of Wham! was me as I suddenly thought, 'Oh my God, I’m a massive star and I'm gay.' The depression was about that, about the way I'd boxed myself in."
For a documentary that's supposed to be all about Wham!, this feels like crucial information, yet little mention is made of George's sexuality again, let alone how it led to the end of Wham!.
The closest we get is one more interview segment where Michael explained how he knew he was gay or at least bisexual by the age of 19:
"I had stayed over at this guy's house," said George. "He'd tried to have sex with me but I'd been too scared, but I realised I wanted to stay in the bed for the night. I realised I wanted to be close to this guy, which had never happened before."
When Michael came out to Ridgeley, he took it well, especially given that this all played out in the '80s, but Andrew did advise his best friend to avoid coming out to his family.
Netflix
Looking back, Michael described this as "a pivotal moment", saying: "At that point in time, I really did want to come out, and then I lost my nerve completely."
"I had this little voice inside going, 'What am I going to do?' I was intelligent enough to know that this was the wrong road if I was looking for happiness. I should not be trying to catch up with Michael Jackson or Madonna, which is what I was absolutely intent on doing. I wanted to be able to develop as a human being, but I felt trapped."
As George said, this feels like "a pivotal moment," but director Chris Smith doesn't seem to agree as the doc doesn't expand on this any further.
Previously unseen archive footage used throughout does help give Michael a voice in this process, which is vital, but his voice is still missing from the curation of said material. And therein lies the problem.
Had George Michael himself been involved, it's likely that much more would have been made of his struggles as a closeted gay superstar. They were integral to his journey, after all, and not just after Wham! broke up. That means they should also be integral to any documentary that wants to take a serious look at the band's legacy as a whole.
The problem is that Chris Smith doesn't want to take a "serious" look at their story. He's far more concerned with how "life affirming" Wham! was to their millions of fans, which makes for a rather hollow take, unfortunately.
You'd think that the film would perhaps end with more information to help contextualise the band's story within George Michael's wider career. Instead, all we're given is the following two statements:
1) "As a solo artist, George went on to sell over 120 million records. No one was more proud and less surprised than Andrew."
2) "In 2020, 'Last Christmas' finally hit the number one spot."
While the second point makes sense to include given the focus of the doc, that first one does almost nothing to capture George's life beyond the band. Instead, this one brief statement ends up leaning on Andrew's viewpoint more than you might expect, making George's incredible achievements beyond Wham! more about Ridgeley than George himself.
Netflix
That argument could also be made against the doc as a whole. Even with those George Michael interview snippets used throughout, it's clear that Ridgeley's viewpoint is all over this film, which might help explain why certain key elements surrounding his bandmate's story ended up on the cutting room floor.
There's also a brief dedication slide, as you'd hope, but what about all the accolades George Michael won over the years? What about all the charity work he did, both secretly and in public? And again, what about his struggle as one of the world's biggest gay pop stars at a time when being gay wasn't even something teachers could legally discuss at school?
It's easy to see why Netflix's Wham! avoided George Michael's legal problems or even the circumstances surrounding his death. That's not necessarily relevant to a celebratory film like this. But his queerness is so integral to Michael's identity, both as an artist and as a human being, that covering it with such a lack of depth feels detrimental to the story of Wham! at large.
In that aforementioned interview with Radio Times, director Chris Smith said he was keen to make a film that's "reflective of the experience that they shared," but too much is left out for that to be true.
Wham! is now available to watch on Netflix.
