Wah-wah

Actor-turned-writer-director Richard E. Grant's heavily autobiographical coming-of-age drama unfolds in Swaziland on the eve of its independence from England, which matters only to the degree that it affects the insular lives of the British expatriate community, which is to say not at all. Grant's lightly fictionalized stand-in, Ralph Compton (Zachary Fox), lives with his hard-drinking father, Harry (Gabriel Byrne), a highly placed cog in the education ministry, and his bitterly bored and unhappy mother, Lauren (Miranda Richardson), who's carrying on a none-too-subtle affair with Harry's best friend, John Traherne (Ian Roberts). Her infidelity is par for the course a...