The Ballad of Wallis Island

I wanted to recommend the film "The Ballad Of Wallis Island".

The tide ebbs and flows around Wallis Island, but there’s a bigger force of nature making waves here: Tim Key, who, for the entirety of this absolute gem of a film, makes us cry with laughter and, well, just cry.

Adapted by him and his comedy boyfriend Tom Basden from their 2007 short The One And Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island, and again directed by James Griffiths, this follows Key’s wealthy widower Charles as he attempts to reunite his favourite folk duo, the estranged McGwyer Mortimer (Basden and Carey Mulligan).

Key has always been a truly singular human, his absurdist comedy as sharp as it is silly. Here, though, as the misty-eyed Charles, desperate for company – for friendship, for love – he tugs at the heartstrings as much as he hits the funny bone, in a film that heralds harmony in all its forms.

With "The Ballad of Wallis Island", Tom Basden and Tim Key have written a poignant and comical exploration of music, loss, nostalgia and hope.

The film has been compared to Once (2007) and Local Hero (1983), similarly low-key films that put music at the heart of quiet personal transformations. It also shares common ground with movingly situated, deliberately gently paced and panoramically shot films like The Dig (2021).

Pared back and slow paced, the film downplays the complex emotions at its core and leaves the audience to connect their own dots. Instead of verbose dialogue or emotional clashes it uses everyday details to encourage the audience to be observant – a two-second shot that picks out a framed picture on a sideboard, the shadow that passes over a face, a simple gesture.

Writer and star Tom Basden has form in the sitcom world. As well as his sitcom Plebs (2013), his most recent television project, Here We Go (2022), shares many of the subtle emotional touches and casually observed titbits of everyday life.

This is, as others have called it, a nostalgic film, about loss and moving on. The quietly hopeful takeaway from the film is that small gestures are as memorable as any stadium finale.