Netflix documentary film “Wham!”, which was released a few days ago, looks into one interesting English pop duo during the 1980s. Seriously, I have never been aware of their music or popularity before watching the documentary, but, what do you know, I actually remember well some of their hit songs such as, yes, “Last Christmas” without knowing anything about them, and that says a lot about how iconic their band has been for more than 30 years since they eventually came to part ways at the end of their glorious peak era.

The documentary presents the story of this duo band, which was incidentally named “Wham!”, via the words from the two principal members of the band. While George Michael’s words are mostly from archival sources because he passed away in 2016, both he and Andrew Ridgeley, who is very much alive even at this point, occupy each own equal spot in the documentary nonetheless, and it is really fun to observe how their respective recollections fluidly complement each other from the beginning to the end with considerable wit and insight.

At the beginning, we get a brief summary on how Michael and Ridgeley became each other’s best friend during their childhood years. During that time, Michael, who was actually born as Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, was a shy and introverted kid of a Greek immigrant family who had just been transferred to Ridgeley’s school, and he surely felt pretty awkward right from the first day at his new school. Fortunately, Ridgeley willingly volunteered to give some help but support to his new classmate, and then they soon came to spend lots of time together once they befriended each other.

Because of their mutual passion on music, Michael and Ridgeley subsequently formed a band of their own, and then they became more serious about their musical activity as they entered adulthood during the 1980s. While still quite young, both of them were also pretty ambitious, and they reminisce a lot about how much they struggled during those early years of their band. They actively passed their several demo tapes around those record company folks out there, and none of those folks showed much interest, and that was really frustrating for both Michael and Ridgeley.

And then there came an unexpected opportunity via one of their neighborhood friends, who happened to be a record company employee and actually gave some push to Michael and Ridgeley’s band. Once a simple contract for their band was signed, Michael and Ridgeley tried their best for making a hit song to impress potential fans and customers out there, but, sadly, their initial several songs did not make much impression, and that made them more desperate and frustrated than before.

However, there subsequently came another surprise chance for them. On one day, Michael and Ridgeley happened to get a chance to appear on TV, and, what do you know, that led to a big breakthrough moment for their band. Their previous songs became much more popular than before, and they were certainly glad to write more songs to distinguish themselves and their band more.

Both Michael and Ridgeley remember well how everything went pretty high for them during next several years – how often they struggled with their sudden big fame and popularity. Although they did get much recognition from local music critics, young people in UK willingly embraced their distinctive mix of disco and punk with a little dash of pop music, and it surely helped that, despite their very different personality difference, both Michael and Ridgeley were good-looking lads who could exude enough presence and charisma on the stage.

The documentary becomes more interesting as Michael and Ridgeley detail on how the dynamics of their professional relationship was gradually changed during that period. While Ridgeley was more outgoing and confident than Michael, Michael came to grow his own artistic ego with increasing confidence, and Ridgeley let his friend become the more prominent and substantial part of their band as an understanding friend who also recognized his friend’s considerable potential. He knew that his friend would move onto the next things to come later, but he still stood by Michael as his best friend nonetheless, and he certainly provided a bit of emotional support when Michael revealed his homosexuality to Ridgeley in private. Mainly thanks to Ridgeley’s party boy image, the public and media did not pay much attention to whatever Michael was doing in private, and both of them gladly went along with that while not saying anything at all.

Deftly juxtaposing Michael and Ridgeley’s words with heaps of archival records and footage clips, director/co-producer Chris Smith, who has been mainly known for “American Movie” (1999) and recently directed “Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened” (2019), did a commendable job of presenting several highlight moments of their band including their participation in the Live Aid concert in 1985. Although I wish it showed more about Michael and Ridgeley, the documentary still works as a vivid and fascinating look into their band and the background era surrounding it, and its rather short running time (92 minutes) quickly passed by during my viewing.

Overall, “Wham!” is the engaging presentation of its main subject and two different human figures behind that, and it is surely one of more enjoyable documentaries from Netflix during this year. The pop music of the 1980s is a rather distant subject to me, but the documentary intrigued and then fascinated me, and that is more than enough for recommendation.