Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 99 minutes
Release Date: March 28th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Focus Features
Director(s): James Griffiths
Writer(s): Tom Basden & Tim Key / Tom Basden & Tim Key (short film The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island)

How many less than a hundred?

Fast-forward to the end, just after Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden) finally sets sail back to civilization, and we hear his host, Charles Heath (Tim Key), talking himself in circles about lunch before remembering he still hasn’t eaten breakfast. It’s a small moment of levity, but also perhaps the most important moment of the film for truly understanding this character who’s been physically unable to shut-up despite being told to countless times. More than even an earlier tennis scene (where he’s all serves), it reveals how isolated Charles has been these past five years. It isn’t therefore nerves or ego, but a necessity since entertaining guests is so anomalous. His unceasing loquaciousness is a defense mechanism combatting an otherwise unbearable silence.

And since he cannot talk twenty-four seven without risking losing his voice, Charles permanently fills his house with the songs of McGwyer Mortimer (Herb’s early folk duo with Carey Mulligan’s Nell Mortimer). Not because they’re his favorite band, but because they were the favorite of his late wife Marie. Those records serve a dual purpose then: filling the air with sound and conjuring his love. It’s why he’s decided to hire both musicians for a very intimate performance on the remote island where he lives for the anniversary of her death. What better way to honor her memory and feel her presence than with the music that quite literally personifies her essence within his heart? In hindsight, however, Charles probably should have let them know that was the reason too.

Written by Basden and Key and directed by James Griffiths (adapted from the trio’s own 2007 short film), The Ballad of Wallis Island is quite astute at never letting the audience equate Charles’ small-time bumpkin flavor with a lack of intelligence. He knows that reason would surely help his cause getting them out to the middle of nowhere, but he also knows they haven’t spoken to each other in a decade. So, money becomes the key factor. Money and a select few white lies. Because, while Nell knows this is to be a “reunion” gig, Herb is under the impression that he will be playing his newer, more commercial work alone. Charles did this on purpose in hopes the old “ask forgiveness instead of permission” adage might grant a wish he knows full transparency never would.

As such, the entire script builds off their parallel ideas of what’s happening. Charles doing everything in his power to remind Herb that his music was never better than when he collaborated with Nell and Herb fooling himself into believing the obvious artistic rejuvenation he feels while rehearsing with Nell is actually a rekindling of their love. Many interactions that follow are thus predicated on this disparity between truths. Yes, Charles’ viewpoint is based in reality while Herb’s is not (Nell is married and her husband, Akemnji Ndifornyen’s Michael, is also in attendance), but it’s also not a perfect truth considering Charles is, wittingly or not, exploiting that fantasy for selfish gains. The hope is that level heads prevail, but art and love are often too messy for that.

Credit the filmmakers for understanding this fact because they refuse to cut corners or soften edges. Both Charles’ and Herb’s actions (altruistic or not) are damaging in their ultimate penchant for greed and consequences must be introduced as a result. These men must be forced to see the error of their way, not to teach the other a lesson, but to realize where they went wrong themselves. That the music should never be solely about money or that great songs written about love mustn’t only be about lasting love rather than heartbreak. That refusing to move on from the past is just as unhealthy as hiding it away with a lock and key because both ensure that the present will always be held prisoner by that past. This film isn’t about holding on. It’s about letting go.

It’s also about moving forward with fresh eyes. Nudging Charles towards the island’s earnestly sheltered shopkeeper Amanda (Sian Clifford). Reminding Herb about the magic of creation he’s lost beneath the demand for profit. These aren’t easy lessons to take either. They demand the discomfort and pain of confronting who you’ve become to dismantle it and return to who you were and can be again. That the main players are complete polar opposites of each other in persona only adds to the entertainment value for us while helping to speed-up their need for self-reflection rather than external comparison. Because it’s not about Charles being more like Herb and vice versa. It’s about needing to become more like their best selves.

Key and Basden’s rapport is wonderful. The comedic timing of their delivery and reactions is impeccable and every fit of rage that might arise from the dynamic is always intentionally pointing backwards rather than towards the other. The remote location only amplifies the laughs because Charles is just as oblivious to why something he does is weird as Herb is incredulous. They’re as unlike each other as two people can be, but they both understand the power of art to unite them just the same. And that’s where Mulligan enters as a bridge for Charles and door for Herb. She knows what was lost when she walked away from music, but also what she gained. Now it’s their turn to do the same. To break nostalgia’s hold and recognize that their lives haven’t stopped. Rebirth remains possible.

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(L to R) Carey Mulligan as Nell Mortimer and Tom Basden as Herb McGwyer in director James Griffiths’ THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND, a Focus Features release. Alistair Heap/Focus Features ©2025 All Rights Reserved.