For his first stab at directing, Richard E Grant has assembled a tried-and-tested cast. Gabriel Byrne, Emily Watson, Miranda Richardson, Julie Walters and Celia Imrie: these five could make a gas bill sound fun.
Which is fortunate, because the script for Wah-Wah, a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama, represents almost as much of a challenge.
It's not that the events in the story are undramatic. It's that there's no sense of pace or nuance. It is the late Sixties and the expats of British Swaziland are busy boozing and/or having extra-marital affairs.
Ralph's sexy mum (Richardson) flees the family home, sending Dad (Byrne) into a whisky-fuelled free-fall that even the arrival of sunny, sane Yank Ruby (Watson) can't halt.
We lurch from smiles to screams and back again, flicks of the switch that the two inadequate young leads (playing our hero at 11 and 14) make especially obvious.
Wah-Wah
Cert: 15
