Rent The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025)

Songs in the Key of Longing - The Ballad of Wallis Island review by griggs

The Ballad of Wallis Island takes a little while to settle as Tim Key and Tom Basden gradually shed the personas they’re best known for. But once they do, the film finds its rhythm as a warm, offbeat meditation on longing, awkwardness, and delusion. Key plays a lonely lottery winner who uses his fortune to reunite a defunct band—Basden and an unflappable Carey Mulligan—for a private gig on a remote island. Mulligan is coolly indifferent throughout, but Basden is clearly unsettled, both by performing to an audience of one and by his unresolved feelings for her. It’s a strange setup, but one handled with surprising tenderness. The humour is gentle and well-observed, with moments of genuine pathos tucked between the absurdities. There’s a sadness to the whole enterprise that never overwhelms but lingers just beneath the surface. A bittersweet, quietly funny gem that rewards patience and empathy in equal measure.

A Delightful British Comedy - The Ballad of Wallis Island review by GI

This is a delight. A funny yet melancholy British comedy that brings together quintessential characters into a rather touching film. Charles (Tim Key) is an oddbod; an eccentric, lonely and socially inept guy who lives on a remote coastal island and is the biggest fan of a folk duo who broke up years before after some success. He also happens to be a lottery winner. So he hires them to play on the island. But Herb (Tom Basden) and Nell (Carey Mulligan), once music partners and lovers, are now estranged and herb arrives under the misapprehension he's going to play alone, to a big audience. The end result as these three spend time on this windswept British island is simply lovely, tinged with sadness as their stories are revealed to us. A little surprise of a film and definitely one to check out.

Filmed in South Wales, this is Excellent Character-based Tragi-Comic Drama at its Finest - The Ballad of Wallis Island review by PV

Based on a 2007 award-winning short film of the same name, also written by and starring longterm comedy collaborators Tom Basden and Tim Key, this is a lovely film which works because the characters are so strong and believable, even when the set-up, backstory and context are not. We let that slide via our willing suspension of disbelief.

The star here is Tim Key, who's well known from UK TV, Alan Partridge, Plebs and Detectorists etc; Tom Basden also well-known since Plebs and Peep Show where they both started after university where they were in a comedy act called COWARDS with 2 others. Key and Basden are from the same generation as Mitchell and Webb from Peep Show and emerged from stage, radio and TV comedy sketch shows too.

The Welsh-heritage director James Griffiths no doubt chose the South Wales locations in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire where this was filmed. He also directed the 2006 short film which has the same plot exactly. Just shows how long films take to get made/get funding - 20 years in this case. Maybe they could have done it sooner if they'd won the lottery eh?

Just roll with it, enjoy the story and characters - and the lines of the main Tm Key character are classic and believable, not cartoon character or caricature - this is a real man and we know blokes like this! The tall tale itself is unlikely, what with lottery wins and piles of cash BUT just go with the gentle character-based tale and this film will touch anyone who watches it.

Also, this film is VERY wise to just play snippets of the songs of the fictional pop/folk star. It is always a weakness in drama about fictional bands - the songs which were supposedly hits are always so lane. This gets away with it by just playing pretty bits of old songs, and folk-rock is hardly hit parade stuff either.

4.5 stars rounded up.