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<\/p>\nTHE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND
Directed by James Griffiths
Written by Tim Key and Tom Basden
100 minutes, rated PG
Selected cinemas
Reviewed by JAKE WILSON
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The comedy of irritation calls for a special kind of deftness. The very British humour of James Griffiths\u2019 The Ballad of Wallis Island depends less on traditional punchlines than on how the over-enthusiastic folk music fan Charles Heath (Tim Key) keeps cracking feeble jokes and generally rambling on, a bit like a character played by Ricky Gervais.<\/p>\n
But to picture Gervais or almost any big comic star in the role is to become aware of how Key reins himself in by comparison \u2013 managing his nervous blinking and forced smiles with calm precision, and showing us Charles\u2019 loneliness and inhibitions without overdoing the sad-clown routine.<\/p>\n
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Carey Mulligan as Nell and Tom Basden as Herb in The Ballad of Wallis Island.Credit: Alistair Heap\/Focus Features <\/p>\n
Perhaps it helps that he\u2019s had almost 20 years to think about the material. The script, which he co-wrote with his co-star Tom Basden, is based on a 2007 short from the same team, including Griffiths as director.<\/p>\n
Luckily for them, the odd-couple formula the film is founded on seems never to go out of date. Indeed, if it wasn\u2019t on record that they had the idea so long ago, they might be suspected of borrowing from some more recent examples of the form, notably The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, with Pedro Pascal as the world\u2019s leading admirer of Nicolas Cage.<\/p>\n
The set-up is wilfully improbable: a former nurse, Charles has become independently wealthy through two big lottery wins in a row. Following the death of his wife, he\u2019s spent part of his fortune on a needlessly large house on a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he leads a solitary life seemingly by choice, though this is belied by his desperate chattiness when guests do arrive.<\/p>\n
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The first of these guests is Herb McGwyer, a middle-aged rock star played by Basden as a comparatively normal bloke (unlike most rock stars in movies, and perhaps in life). Prior to his solo career, Herb was part of a folk duo with his ex, Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan). But their breakup was painful, and the pair haven\u2019t spoken in close to a decade.<\/p>\n
Still, Charles has a dream, some version of which must have occurred to many music fans. With enough money on the table, surely his favourite act can be persuaded to reunite for a single show with an audience of one?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLANDDirected by James GriffithsWritten by Tim Key and Tom Basden100 minutes, rated PGSelected cinemasReviewed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":["post-98730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}