NATHAN WEINBENDER:
The Ballad of Wallis Island is a British comedy of the sort we like to call, perhaps a bit too condescendingly, a “small” movie—small cast, small budget, small stakes, set in a small community and made up of small emotional moments. It’s sweet, sometimes to the brink of syrupy, and it’s often quite funny.
The movie is expanded from a 25-minute short film made in 2007, written by and starring comedians Tim Key and Tom Basden. They return, as does director James Griffiths, and they’ve only added a couple new variables to their original formula. Basden is Herb McGwyer, a folk-rock musician whose peak is behind him. Key is a socially awkward man named Charles, who lives alone and doesn’t work but subsists off some lottery winnings.
Charles has enticed McGwyer to his home on the teeny-tiny Wallis Island, which is only accessible by a single motorboat. (The boat captain makes a trip out to the island once a day, except for the days where he doesn’t feel like traveling.) Herb is only there because he’s being paid half a million pounds to play to a small audience. It isn’t until he’s off the boat that he learns it’s an audience of one: just Charles, the superfan to end all superfans.
Herb was once half of a popular musical duo with his girlfriend Nell Mortimer, which fell apart when their relationship did. And much to Herb’s surprise, Charles has also lured Nell (Carey Mulligan) to Wallis Island with—another surprise—her new husband Michael (Akemnji Ndifornyen) in tow.
The screenplay by Key and Basden develops some light-comedy contrivances to get Michael off the island, thereby giving Herb and Nell the chance to remember why their pairing was once so magical. There’s also the matter of the nice single mother (Sian Clifford) who operates the island’s only store and who takes a shine to Charles, whose loneliness has a sad explanation.
Wallis Island is itself something of a contrivance, the sort of insular but welcoming community that really only exists in movies like this. The details of village life surely owe a debt to the work of Bill Forsyth, especially 1983’s Local Hero, although it doesn’t develop the absurd specificity of that film’s quirky Scottish isle. It’s perhaps closer in spirit to the wave of charming British and Australian comedies that came out in the ’90s: The Full Monty and Brassed Off and Muriel’s Wedding.
As such, it works, and it works because the actors are so damn charming. Key has the same mastery of bumbling and outdated pop culture references as David Brent in the original version of The Office, and the deadpan Basden gets laughs from simply reacting to his foil. It also helps that Basden’s original tunes are pretty good, and they’re actually convincing as songs that might have developed an indie following 15 years ago.
Like a catchy pop song, The Ballad of Wallis Island hits all the notes you expect it to. But, to belabor the metaphor, it has a minor-key bridge that I didn’t really see coming. And it ultimately gets stuck in our head and keeps us humming, no matter how unassuming and small it is.
For Spokane Public Radio, I'm Nathan Weinbender.
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Nathan Weinbender is a co-host of Spokane Public Radio’s Movies 101, heard Friday evenings at 6:30 PM on KPBX and Saturday afternoons at 1:30 PM on KSFC.