A few weeks ago, someone in Montrose won a million pounds on a scratch-card. The whole town was agog. What did she did do with the money? The lottery-winner in “The Ballad of Wallis Island” (Universal), showing now at the Montrose Playhouse, bought a decrepit house on an island off the British coast and spent most of the remaining cash on hiring two folk/rock singers, an ex-duo, to perform a private gig.
The road from fandom to stalking zigzags via creepiness and obsession. Lucky Charles, played by Tim Key, is firmly at the flashing-red extreme. In the opening minutes, it seems as if only the male half of the duo, Herb McGuire, played by Tom Basden, will be performing on the island. Herb deduces that he has been sharply manipulated—the crowd promised for the gig doesn’t exist (“How many less than 100?” “As in?” “As in. Is it just you?” “Yeah.”). He tells his agent that Charles is a “male-marker,” following him everywhere, spying on him—“can you just stop prying, please!” Herb tolerates it, just, because he has been bought with a suitcase stuffed full of pristine £50-notes. Charles is played as a carbon copy of David Brent, from “The Office” (2001–3). He doesn’t shut up: awful puns, bad jokes, cheesy rhyming-slang. Meanwhile Herb seethes with resentment having so utterly sold his soul. He pouts, strops, complains, condescends, “do you know who I am.” Realising that his ex-partner has been invited along too (their relationship was, as it turns out, romantic as well as singer/song-writer), he ages backwards from moody-teen to terrible-two.
Nell Mortimer, played by Carey Mulligan, arrives with her likeable birder husband, Michael, played by Akemnji Ndifornyen, who is not given enough to do. She is the good-tempered spirit capable of elevating the film above mere fantasy and resentment. In the ten years since separating from Herb, she has make chutney, remarried, emigrated to the U.S.—and is now in love with Michael. She approaches the gig in the right frame of mind: gracefully, willingly, enthusiastically. Her full, humble, dignified life without music and without Herb attracts us to her. Charles crudely wields his power (that came through the lottery-win) in an bid to get McGwyer/Mortimer back together. But instead Nell hands Herb the truth on a plate. “Do you want me to say that I like [your new album cover], or do you want me to be honest?” she asks. And then, curtly, “It’s time for you to grow up.”
We feel ill at ease in the first three quarters of the movie. The ra-ta-ta of Charles’ endless blether is maddening. He never pauses for breath or to search for a word. Charles-the-stalker is drawn with Sharpie-edges, the humour used like cartoon-strip speech balloons to try to disguise the truth: that he is getting off on his obsession. He is not as naively innocent as David Brent and so the parallel doesn’t quite fit. A potentially rewarding secondary-theme relating to male stars being more valuable (in cash or fandom terms) than their female equivalents is left hanging. (Nell is paid £200,000 less than Herb for the same amount of work; Charles has roomfulls of Herb’s memorabilia but just a lock of “mis-sold hair” of Nell’s.) One way out might have been to make a bigger star of the island itself. Its natural beauty feels muffled, overshadowed, placed too far back. The filmmakers could have split the human interest evenly between the power trip and the gender bias, then allowed the photography, which is of “National Geographic” quality, to meet the dialog half way.
The outstanding achievement of the film is the photography, under the direction of G. Magni Ágústsson. There are gorgeous overhead shots of the waves as they break at the shore; precisely calibrated, lengthways shots up the beach with the characters in the foreground; ocean swimming in close-up. The burning lanterns lifting off from the beach took my breath away: as they rise to the right of the shot, the camera tracks away from the characters standing on the beach to expose the delicate vulnerability of the moment. But equally impressive is the technical skill of the interior work. Now the camera moves in the opposite direction, ever-so-slowly inwards towards Herb’s face as his eyes well up. There is a fabulous shot of Charles through a partially closed door, just as we would actually see him should we be walking in the hallway. When Herb hurriedly packs to flee, the camera shoots jerkily between the two men—highlighting the frenzied rush.
Stars Tim Key and Tom Basden also wrote the story—twice (the earlier film of 2007 was only 25 minutes long). Perhaps they became too close to the project for the final script to be suitably balanced; objectively, screen time could have been better shared with the island and the other actors, and the dialog pruned right back. Still, McGwyer/Mortimer—the band—would likely have attracted quite a crowd at least weekend’s Montrose Music Festival. Both stars can really sing; the diction is crisp and the songs themselves good. And, for lovers of beautiful cinematography, this is a not-to-be-missed film.
Charles believes he can reunite a grateful couple, buying their love as the reward. But he fails because fantasy is not converted by money into friendship. We don’t admire the lottery-winner who buys their way into the same orbit as a famous artist or two. In fact, we pity anyone who is smug enough to say, “Just me, my money, and your beautiful music.”
Adam Poole
30th May 2025
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