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From left, Tom Basden as Herb McGwyer, Carey Mulligan as Nell Mortimer and Tim Key as Charles in “The Ballad of Wallis Island.” Courtesy of Focus Features If you crossed the lovely indie musical “Once” (2007) with the charming Scottish comedy classic “Local Hero” (1983), and subtracted half of the loveliness and charm, you might end up with “The Ballad of Wallis Island,” a sweet little British comedy that tickles the senses as you watch it, then immediately evaporates. At its center is a proper English eccentric, Charles (Tim Key), a roly-poly, eager-to-please sort who – through events too amusingly twee to spoil – has come into enough money to buy his own island and retire there.
Which gets lonely soon enough when the only other people around are a few fishermen and Amanda (Sian Clifford), the fetching but equally shy proprietor of the island store. “The Ballad of Wallis Island” opens as Charles is attempting to ease his isolation by inviting his favorite folk-music duo, McGwyer and Mortimer, out for some entertainment and a bit of how-d’ye-do. There are two problems with this: First, Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden) and Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan) broke up years ago, as both a couple and an act, and second, McGwyer thinks he’s been hired to play a music festival and is thoroughly confused to learn the gig is to an audience of one.
The early scenes feature some rich off-kilter humor, as the growly musician realizes he’s stuck in the middle of nowhere with the sort of extreme fan who might call for a restraining order. Key plays Charles as an adorable pest who finishes other people’s sentences with puns and wordplay – a borderline-maddening character whose incessant cheerfulness is leavened by a deep, unspoken sadness. It’s a balancing act that the actor manages to sustain for the entire running time – no mean feat.
With the arrival of Nell, along with her current partner (Akemnji Ndifornyen), the stage is set for some kind of reunion. Musical? Professional? Romantic? That’s as much suspense as “The Ballad of Wallis Island” offers, but it’s enough to eke out 100 minutes of low-key human comedy. Tom Basden, right, and Carey Mulligan play a disbanded musical duo named McGwyer and Mortimer.
Alistair Heap/Focus Features Some of you have read above that Carey Mulligan is in this and have already bought your tickets, and I, for one, cannot blame you. As the less career-oriented half of the onetime duo, the actress exudes the weary, wary smile of a woman who’s been once bitten by living with a narcissist, and that was enough, thank you. Co-written by the two male leads and helmed by James Griffiths, a busy British TV director who expands upon the 2007 short film “The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island,” “Ballad” spends less time with Mulligan’s Nell and more on the fussy, gradually thawing relationship between Charles and Herb.
That said, there’s a honey of a late-night conversation between the two musicians in which hearts are bared and old resentments aired. One never gets the sense that McGwyer and Mortimer were an equal partnership onstage, though, and their songs are delicate things that suggest Nick Drake in harmony with himself – nice enough in themselves but hardly the stuff of mainstream success. Mostly, “The Ballad of Wallis Island” is about its characters (by which I mean its male characters) learning to put the past behind them, which in McGwyer’s case means forgoing a dreadful pop solo career and getting back to his acoustic roots and for Charles means moving beyond a personal tragedy.
Shot on Ramsey Island and other locations along the coast of Wales, the movie is gorgeous to look at, and it’s endearing enough to warm one’s hands and heart on a cold entertainment evening. If it doesn’t add up to much in the end, it joins a long island chain of magical movie outposts (“Local Hero,” “I Know Where I’m Going,” “Whiskey Galore!”) and the beautiful oddballs who live there. Ty Burr is the author of the movie recommendation newsletter Ty Burr’s Watch List at tyburrswatchlist.
com . Two and one-half stars. Rated PG-13.
At theaters. Contains some language and smoking. 100 minutes.
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