The Ballad of Wallis Island

The Ballad of Wallis Island

By

  • Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
  • Release Date: 2025-03-28
  • Runtime: 100 minutes
  • : 7
  • Production Company: Baby Cow Productions
  • Production Country: United Kingdom
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7/10
7
From 31 Ratings

Description

Eccentric lottery winner Charles lives alone on a remote island but dreams of hiring his favourite musician, Herb McGwyer, to play an exclusive, private gig. Unbeknownst to Herb, Charles has also hired Herb’s ex-bandmate and ex-girlfriend, Nell, with her new husband in town, to perform the old favourites. As tempers flare and old tensions resurface, the stormy weather traps them all on the island and Charles desperately looks for a way to salvage his dream gig.

Trailer

Reviews

  • CinemaSerf

    7
    By CinemaSerf
    “Charlie” (Tim Key) lives in a big house on a small island eagerly anticipating the arrival of his musical hero. That would be “Herb” (Tom Basden) a folk musician whose career has seen better days. To say that the host is effusive and nervous would be understatements as the arrival on the local boat - and short walk through the chilly waters sets an unimpressive and disapproving scene for the musician. Quite quickly, through the constant stream of rhyming couplets, epithets and daft expressions (“We’ve been Dame Judi Drenched” might set the standard), we realise that both of these men have demons and those only worsen for “Herb” when it turns out that “Charlie” has invited his erstwhile singing partner “Nell” (Carey Mulligan) and her new husband to the island too! Yes, on the face of it there’s a lot to cringe about here and after about ten minutes of our verbal drenching from Key I did wonder if this was going to be a shocker, but once it settles down - and it does - and we discover a little more about the characters and what drives them, then it actually proves to be quite an entertaining little feature peppered with a few songs (written by Basden and sung by him and Mulligan) that looks at grief, loneliness and friendship. It doesn’t actually follow the expected pattern either, and in the end I rather fancied the idea of life in a thunder storm on an island where you baked an halibut in an Aga for the best part of a day and washed it down with a jeroboam of wine. It is one of these peculiarly British movies that might not travel so well, but there are a few laugh out loud moments and it’s simplicity is engaging and watchable.

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