In the poignant and affecting film The Ballad of Wallis Island, a long-estranged folk duo reunites on a remote Welsh island, rediscovering love, loss, and music in a fragile, yet beautiful harmony.
A carefully considered mix of humor and melancholy glows in the fragile sunshine that bathes an isolated Welsh coastline in The Ballad of Wallis Island, a wan yet affecting consideration of lost love, forgotten bands, and the odd ways those entities manifest themselves in our hearts and on our turntables.
Humor is a complex and multifaceted aspect of human communication.
It can be used to diffuse tension, create social bonds, and even facilitate learning.
Studies have shown that people who use humor in their daily lives tend to have better mental health outcomes and stronger relationships.
In fact, laughter has been found to reduce stress hormones and boost the immune system.
From stand-up comedy to satire, humor takes many forms and continues to play a vital role in shaping culture and society.
An Unlikely Reunion
The film tells the story of McGwyer Mortimer, a long-estranged duo that was once the top British folk act of 2014, reconvening on a remote island at the behest of one of its very few residents, Charles. A Candide-like former nurse who boasts little more than time, money, a wicked tennis serve, and rapidly fading memories of a happier past he shared with his wife Marie, who died five years earlier.
The source of the moolah, not unlike the cause of his still fresh heartache, was a random act of God: he won the lottery, not once, but twice. Charles pays the pair with suitcases filled with pound notes, hers considerably lighter than his. Herb McGwyer (Basden) had spent the decade since the break-up crafting cheesy solo albums, while Nell Mortimer (Mulligan) moved to Portland to make small batch chutney and live a quiet life with her husband Michael (Akemnji Ndifornyen), a birder who tags along on in hopes of spotting the puffins that gather on the island’s north side.
A Two-Hander
Three-time Oscar nominee Mulligan, luminous as always, gets a bit of a short shrift here. This is very much a two-hander about emotionally adrift men rediscovering an inner flame that pretty much extinguished around the time Fleabag was a hit. Sian Clifford, best known as Fleabag’s sister Claire, is on hand as the island’s lone shopkeeper.
Both Basden and Key are well up to the challenge, especially Key. Equally overbearing and demure, his Charles is both a dream and a nightmare of a host, a leaking teapot of bad jokes and awkward observations. The comic rhythm he shares with Basden—a very precise iteration of entitled yet aggrieved—is wondrous, like a lo-fi Abbott and Costello.
A Touching Soundtrack
Basden also supplies the music for the fictitious band, penning over 20 tunes that touchingly, if perhaps furtively, put one in the mind of Nick Drake and Gillian Welch. While these are not exactly tracks that one can imagine inspiring the absurd depth of Charles’ obsession (his collection of McGwyer Mortimer memorabilia includes a lock of Nell’s hair he purchased off the internet), the moments where Key watches them being sung in front of him, the camera focused on his eyes as he traverses the beautiful and painful past they evoke, are deeply moving.
Basden is a surname of English origin, derived from the Old English words 'bæs' meaning 'dweller by' and 'denu' meaning 'valley'.
The name likely referred to someone living in a valley or low-lying area.
In historical records, Basden is found primarily in the counties of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire in northeastern England.
Notable individuals with the surname include William Basden, an English explorer who traveled to North America in the 17th century.
A Sincere Touch
With slightly catchier tunes, The Ballad of Wallis Island would pair nicely with a certain other doleful comedy about an embittered folk act that co-starred Carey Mulligan: the Coen brothers’ 2013 Inside Llewyn Davis. Indeed, you half expect a freezing cold Oscar Isaac to wash ashore holding a cat.
But where that film could never quite shake off its directors’ calculated cynicism, television director James Griffiths (Episodes)—who also helmed The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island, the Basden and Key 2007 short on which this film was based—leans hard on the story’s tenderness and vulnerability. By and large, the sincerity pays off.
A Comforting Warmth
Like the damp, knitted cardigans favored by Charles, this cottage-core musical, while not always comfortable, still manages to keep us warm.
