REEL | 'The Ballad of Wallis Island' Reflects on the Past

"Some things you just can't get back."

Focus Features

British comedy duo Tom Basden and Tim Key write and star in the cozy relationship comedy The Ballad of Wallis Island. Based on their 2007 short film, The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island, the big-hearted film revolves around an eccentric but lonely double lottery winning superfan widower tricking his favourite folk rock musical duo, "McGwyer & Mortimer," into reuniting together on the eponymous remote island for a private concert unbeknownst to half of them.

Helmed by veteran television director James Griffiths, the pair's dryly deadpan comedic banter is heightened by co-star Carey Mulligan's reflectively sunny demeanour as Basden's former musical and romantic partner, who has not seen in nine years after a messy personal and professional breakup. Mulligan's casually easygoing but assertive demeanour grounds the sillier sitcom-type antics of the eccentric millionaire's deceptive but ultimately noble scheming and plans.

There's so much winning humour and fine character development to the film's story, characters, and how it revisits the past while trying to recapture the magic of a moment in time long gone. Basden and Key lift the otherwise horror-style premise of being trapped on a remote island with a weirdo stranger into a lovely and inviting exploration of nostalgia for a completely made-up piece of culture. Their whole straight man and fool act never fails to amuse.


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