Indie rock hipster Sean Bones goes with the flow on the beaches and backroads of Jamaica in this smart and funny comedy about a skinny New York white boy trying to cut it in a Rastaman world.
A dynamic portrait of Jamaica and of vacation as experience, not escape.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2010
Wah Do Dem 2009
Unfolding to a backbeat of chilled Jamaican pop, Wah Do Dem is a smart and funny account of everything that goes wrong (and a few things that go miraculously right) for a Brooklyn indie rock hipster alone in the Caribbean. Dumped by his girlfriend (Norah Jones), Max (Sean Bones) leaves New York on a cruise ship full of jolly retirees. Fleeing for his life at Kingston, he dons his lime-green Ray-Bans and opts to go with the flow on the beaches and backroads of Jamaica. Devised and shot on little more than a backpacker’s budget, the film is as fresh and unpredictable as every new day of his travels. As Max is pulled way outside his comfort zone, white boy self-awareness and a very Anglo mortification at relying on feckless locals vie with the sheer elation of partying in the moment. Jamaica sure looks like paradise, and the film is graced with a prophetic Rastaman intervention from a compellingly trippy Carl Bradshaw, veteran of The Harder They Come. — BG