The Bal­lad Of Wal­lis Island review – rel­ish­es in daft phys­i­cal comedy

“No man is an island,” so goes the poem by John Donne, which was an idea res­olute­ly reject­ed by Hugh Grant’s ded­i­cat­ed bach­e­lor in the adap­ta­tion of Nick Hornby’s About a Boy who stat­ed, ​“I am an island. I am bloody Ibiza!” It’s a sen­ti­ment that may have been embraced by the two main char­ac­ters in this gen­tle British bro­mance writ­ten by com­ic genius Tim Key and Tom Bas­den who both star as men who are a lit­tle lost. It’s direct­ed by James Grif­fiths and based on a short film from 2007 which has been expand­ed to include more char­ac­ters and ten­der­ly com­posed folk tunes by Adem Ilhan.

Key plays Charles, an eccen­tric mil­lion­aire who inhab­its a man­sion on an iso­lat­ed island off the coast of Wales. Moti­vat­ed by nos­tal­gia for indie folk duo McG­wyer (Bas­den) and Mor­timer (Carey Mul­li­gan) who were big in the ​’00s and acri­mo­nious­ly broke up, he invites them to his island to play a pri­vate gig. McG­wyer is blind­sided by Mortimer’s pres­ence which leads him on an exis­ten­tial cri­sis. He begins to ques­tion whether he sold out for his solo career and why exact­ly their romance failed. The only man that has his shit togeth­er is Michael (Akem­n­ji Ndi­fornyen), Mortimer’s lov­ing part­ner and bird enthu­si­ast. They’re also joined by Sian Clif­ford who plays the local shopkeeper.

It sounds like the set up for a clas­sic hor­ror film but it plays out as charm­ing com­e­dy and upbeat musi­cal. Its light­ness of tone is a throw­back to 00s British come­dies star­ring the afore­men­tioned flop­py-haired Grant such as Music and Lyrics and About a Boy. The film con­tains love­ly notions about the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of humans but its main focus is on the odd cou­ple dynam­ic between Charles and McG­wyer. As it leans into their bro­mance it places males in cri­sis, their frag­ile egos and emo­tions under the micro­scope. Per­haps a nec­es­sary ton­ic for mod­ern times.

Charles is griev­ing and strug­gling to move on, while McGwyer’s glam­orous lifestyle has dis­con­nect­ed him from real­i­ty and from form­ing any mean­ing­ful bonds. The screen­play address­es this through his past rela­tion­ship with Mor­timer who has trad­ed in music for a ground­ed home-life. Even if Mor­timer gets a small amount of screen time, she is at least a char­ac­ter who is shad­ed in enough to make her cred­i­ble, plus her boho Lucy & Yak inspired out­fits are to die for. Mul­li­gan and Bas­den also share great chem­istry espe­cial­ly in the scenes when they’re engag­ing in musi­cal jovi­al­i­ty and melancholy.

The screen­play writ­ten by the duo rel­ish­es in daft phys­i­cal com­e­dy, the absur­di­ty of the sit­u­a­tion and Charles’s awk­ward ways. It’s fair to say that Key gives him­self all the best one-lin­ers which are of course deliv­ered with per­fect dead­pan hilar­i­ty. It may be a tad uneven and repet­i­tive in places but it’s also enjoy­ably sweet and sil­ly. If this film were a folk band, it may not head­line the Pyra­mid Stage at Glas­ton­bury but it would make a pleas­ant after­noon watch over at the Oth­er Stage.

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