The same week that Sinners opens, another movie about the power of music opens, but just at the AMC theaters at Grapevine Mills and the Parks at Arlington. The Ballad of Wallis Island is on a much smaller scale and pursues completely different goals, and if you go in knowing that, you may find yourself utterly charmed.
The film begins with Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden) arriving on a private island off the coast of Wales, where he’s greeted by owner Charles Heath (Tim Key). Herb’s getting a £500,000 cash payday from Charles to play a concert there, but there’s a lot that Charles hasn’t told him: The venue has no stage, Herb is expected to play on the beach, the audience is going to be Charles alone, and Herb is reuniting with his ex-wife Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan), his former musical partner in a famous folk-rock band called McGwyer Mortimer. She has retired to Portland to make chutney with her new American husband (Akemnji Ndifornyen), so she can use the money, which turns out to be considerably less than what Herb is being paid. Her husband has come along on the trip to pursue his birdwatching hobby, and much like Charles, he’s relentlessly cheerful and polite, which only increases Herb’s feeling that he’s trapped in hell.
Basden, Key, and director James Griffiths have expanded this film from their 2007 short film The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island, which you can find on YouTube. The island is large, and yet Charles never seems to be more than 20 feet away from Herb, cracking cheesy jokes and asking whether Herb needs anything. Indeed, he’s so bad at reading social cues that when Herb tells him to close the door to his room, Charles doesn’t interpret that as a plea for privacy and stays in the room after he shuts the door. It’s a joke that the movie stretches almost but not quite to the breaking point, and Key dexterously straddles the line between making Charles funny and creepy. He also comes through in the later stages, when Charles becomes a figure of pathos, a lonely, recently widowed lottery winner who’s spending his winnings to reunite McGwyer Mortimer because they were his late wife’s favorite band.
Alas, Mortimer is the weak link here. This character was not in the short film and has been added to the proceedings, and Mulligan is vastly overqualified for what Nell is called on to do, both musically and comedically. Of course, Mulligan is married to Marcus Mumford in real life, and she brings that experience to the role in Nell’s bemused reaction to Herb’s musical nerdiness. Still, the movie never delves into why Nell has given up music, and Charles’ suggestion that she record her own solo album like her ex did isn’t followed up on. The problems aren’t limited to her character, either — it doesn’t make sense (nor is it funny) that Herb has gone pop in a major way when he’s supposed to be clinging to the past that he had with Nell as a musical partner.
Basden writes and performs all of McGwyer Mortimer’s songs himself, and they sound credible as coming from a lo-fi cottagecore act that hit big in the late ’00s. “Raspberry Fair” is beguiling and “Our Love” is genuinely sweet when it might have been cloying. Then, too, The Ballad of Wallis Island maintains the strength of the short film, which is its depiction of a musician who has lost his way and finds it again through his friendship with the simple man who invites him to his home and shares his memories of attending the band’s concerts with his wife. As Herb’s title song makes clear, that is an experience worth singing about.
The Ballad of Wallis Island
Starring Tom Basden, Tim Key, and Carey Mulligan. Directed by James Griffiths. Written by Tom Basden and Tim Key, based on their own short film. Rated PG-13.
