There’s a moment when a film does something which makes you want to tap the cushion of an imaginary snooker table with an imaginary snooker cue as your brain whispers “well played”.*

Tim Key and Tom Basden’s ‘The Balled Of Wallis Island’ did this in a scene where Herb (Basden) finds their host Charles’ (Key) collection of clippings about the duo he was in with Carey Mulligan’s Nell. Flicking through the NME covers and gig reviews, a ticket briefly falls out and from its design was clearly, well clearly to someone who has been to so many gigs and kept so many ticket stubs, one from the Camden Roundhouse in London. So when thirty seconds later, McGwyer Mortimer’s gig there is being discussed I was mentally gently hitting the baulk end.

Music is such a powerful force in my life and it drives the narrative in this film not just because of the songwriting duo and their concert at the centre of everything. Charles’ devotion to McGwyer Mortimer is wrapped up with grief, loneliness and memories of better times. Tim Key plays the reclusive millionaire with all the nervous tics, verbal diarrhoea and shyness of a man who has been talking to himself for years on end. Yet there are moments when an artist known for his skill with words displays so much with just his face that it makes you choke up with tears.

Herb arrives on the island unaware his musical partner he hasn’t seen for a decade along with her husband are arriving imminently. Carey Mulligan is cautious and combative when they reunite but when they finally slip back into the old songs, the old magic is still there. For me, this is what the film does in showing how music can make you time travel, to better times, to when those feelings were fresh, new, exciting and life was easier. On Wallis Island away from calippos and Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups you can be fooled for a while but it can’t last. Rather than looking backwards, the events of the film show a way forward with hope.

Unsurprisingly the script is funny and moving, Charles’ puns and witticisms could be grating but Tim Key’s delivery is charming and sweet. I suspect many a musician will be talking about what’s in their Winnona at the venue each night. Tom Basden’s Herb is wonderfully egotistical while at the same time guarded and moody. You really beileve that he and Carey Mulligan’s Nell were once a couple as well as a mucsial duo as they harmonise not just musically. The songs and music are superb and in the screening I went to the audience stayed seated until the end of the credits as the title song played.

Sian Clifford as shopkeeper Amanda is a wonderful comic foil with her naive nature and unique way of responding to Nell & Herbs requests for anything slightly more than basic tinned goods. Michael, Nell’s American husband played by Akemnji Ndifornyen is grit in the oyster and luckily packed off for a bird watching trip for most of the film. Apart from annoying Herb and telling truths he doesn’t really add much but thats nitpicking.

Its a heartwarming, funny and damned lovely film with a superb cast and soundtrack – get thee to an arthouse cinema today!


*Another example is when the titles of ‘Jo Jo Rabbit’ used footage of from the 1932 ‘Hitler Over Germany’ campaign film synced to “Komm, gib mir deine Hand” by The Beatles. Sat back, relaxed in the sure knowledge I would enjoy this a lot.