Gotta Have Fate

The Netflix documentary, Wham! is as much about destiny, as it is about one of the biggest pop acts of the 1980s and its global impact over a mere five years. The story of how Georgios “George Michael” Panayiotou and Andrew Ridgeley became the legendary pop group is told mostly through archival footage and audio soundbites.

Meeting at school as pre-teens, Andrew and Yog, Andrew’s nickname for Georgios, became friends with a mutual interest in music. By their late-teens, the pair began writing catchy tunes laced with social commentary, plus ones that embraced the frivolity of youth culture (“Club Tropicana”), as well as others that appeared on their 1983 debut album, Fantastic. “Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do),” “Bad Boys” and “Young Guns (Go For It),” positioned Yog, professionally known as George Michael, as the rebellious protagonist, hell- (or heck-) bent on avoiding the 9 to 5 and “death by matrimony,” and set on saving Andrew Ridgeley’s character from a “straight-laced” life (one without George). Besides the (not-so) underlying homoerotic subtext, gay subculture iconography played heavily: leather jackets; tight jeans; aviator glasses—a look that solo George would don again for the Faith era. The musical and visual appeal of Wham! was far-reaching.

Co-crafting the sax-drenched power ballad, “Careless Whisper,” continuing into the Make It Big album (“Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”; “Everything She Wants”; “Freedom”) and their final, Music from the Edge of Heaven (“Last Christmas”; “I’m Your Man”; “Where Did Your Heart Go?”), both traveled down the same creative pop-music path, only for them to hit the proverbial fork in the road, with personal goals and professional roles shifting as they achieved international success. Watching the documentary through the lens of loss, and letting go in life, adds further emotional resonance to what is essentially a story of unconditional love between friends, with one who must selflessly accept what is, so the other can become who he was destined to be.

Go-go watch it if you haven’t.