{"id":78551,"date":"2026-04-18T09:28:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T01:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/?p=78551"},"modified":"2026-04-18T09:28:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T01:28:20","slug":"the-ballad-of-wallis-island-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/?p=78551","title":{"rendered":"The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My wife and I are often leery of British comedies as we so often fail to get the humor but this is a sweet and relatively simple one. It seems this was originally a short film made by the two male leads Tim Key and Tom Basden. Now 18 years later, they’ve expanded it into a full feature film and it’s been a hit with the critics. The core idea of an aging musician performing for a single obsessive fan is just so cute. It’s very small in scale which I usually like but it’s not that deep either, so I’d call it a very pleasing distraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Musician Herb McGwyer arrives on Wallis Island for a gig and is surprised at how undeveloped it is, forcing him to wade into the sea as there isn’t a dock. He is welcomed by Charles Heath, the man who hired him, and learns that in lieu of a hotel, he is to stay at Charles’ house. Upon questioning Charles, he eventually realizes that Charles is an obsessive superfan of McGwyer Mortimer, the folk music duo he used to be part of with his former partner Nell Mortimer, and Charles is to be the sole member of the audience. Herb has been trying to reinvent himself as a pop musician and needs the money to fund his next album so decides to perform anyway despite being annoyed by Charles. But then Nell arrives as well in the company of her American husband Michael, having also being hired by Charles. Nell is now retired from music and sells chutney at farmers’ markets in Portland. During a quiet moment, Michael admits that the couple needs the money from the gig. The reunion rekindles Herb’s feelings for Nell despite her being already married even as he comes to sympathize for Charles, learning that he is grieving for his late wife who was also a fan of the duo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between the music performed by Tom Basden himself, the scenery of the island setting and the cuteness of the premise, this is an easy film to fall in love with. An eccentric, rich fan so obsessed with his favorite musicians that he has a lock of Nell’s hair as part of his extensive collection of memorabilia sounds creepy and there are so many ways this could go wrong. But annoyed as he is by Charles’ incessant talking, Herb admits that he is harmless and even a little pitiful. The humor is kept light as Charles hovers right on the edge of being cringe with his bad jokes and confusing facts about the U.S. I do think that the film cheats a little by overplaying Charles’ cluelessness. The mutual misunderstanding gets old after a while such as when Charles keeps talking up Seamen’s Day only for Herb and Nell to realize that there’s nothing really special going on that day. It’s also a little strange why Herb has the duo stay over for several days when they’re only meant to perform once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carey Mulligan pops in as Nell but this is really a bromance between Herb and Charles. Herb suffers from main character syndrome, framing every interaction with Nell and Charles as if it were all about himself. It’s plain to see for everyone but him that Nell has moved on and so their old songs are just songs. Meanwhile Charles raves about his love for McGwyer Mortimer but it’s really because he misses his deceased wife and the life they shared together. It’s a solid core to build a film around but it’s also somewhat small in scope. At times, you can almost feel how it started life as a short film. There are just too few people around and too little going on. Scenes like Nell suggesting that they release sky lanterns one night feels tacked on and a little unnatural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall I’d say this is a fine film but it’s not anything that will have legs. Basden’s musical performances plausibly paint his character as a folk singer past his prime but also reinforces the impression that Charles is a bit of weirdo to be so fixated on this duo above all others as the songs just aren’t that memorable. I do think it’s pretty cool that Key and Basden were able to revive their old project like this and show the results to a wider audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My wife and I are often leery of British comedies as we so often fail to get the humor but this is a sweet and relatively simple one. It seems this was originally a short film made by the two male leads Tim Key and Tom Basden. Now 18 years later, they’ve expanded it into … Continue reading The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78551"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78761,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78551\/revisions\/78761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}