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This week at the Tryon Theatre is “The Ballad of Wallis Island” (Griffiths 2025), a beautiful and sensitive film that will surely touch the heart of any audience member. This film is a feature-length adaptation of a 2007 short film written by the same team, Tom Basden and Tim Key, who lead the film’s small and intimate cast. Their performances are as impressive as their writing ability, channeling a relatable authenticity and brilliant depth of emotion to their characters. Rounding out the cast as the film’s third lead is Carey Mulligan, whose sensitively charismatic performance provides the film’s beating heart. 

The story is focused on three characters and their emotional currents as they connect for an unofficial reunion. At the center of this is Charles, a wealthy widower who lives on a remote and sparsely populated isle, Wallis Island. 

Charles has invited Herb McGwyer, half of the since disbanded folk duo McGwyer Mortimer, to this island under the guise of having McGwyer perform a small and generously compensated show for an audience of less than one hundred fans (Charles being the only member of that audience). 

Unbeknownst to the moody McGwyer, his old partner and bandmate, Nell Mortimer, has received a similar invite. Their professional reconnection was born of Charles’s secret machinations. 

This contained setting and foundation of deception allow for many pressure-cooked moments of comedy, including the hurling of numerous exasperated insults as the respective personalities and dishonesties spark off of one another. The lean cast and locale allow time for the camera to linger on the nuance of expressions or the delivery of a line. While there is significant humor to be enjoyed through this film, it is a gentle brand of comedy, all wit and charm, lacking any brash presentation. This tender approach is similarly taken in the film’s depiction of growth and emotional weight, treating such human moments with great care, all compassion without sensationalization. All of the film’s scenes, be they heavy or light moments, are imbued with an undeniable lining of charm, providing an enduring warmth to the backdrop of gray English skies. 

For a story exploring folk music’s creation and appreciation, the film mirrors the same emotional chords as the genre. It is an alluring blend of reflection on life’s melancholy and joy within a gently melodic package of acoustic sound. Many emotions can be contained and explored within the same harmonic scope, life’s delicate balance of pain and joy entwined in perfect unison, neither separate nor disconnected from each other, always in collaboration. 

We hope you all will join us for a perfect rainy day film, chock full of charm, in “The Ballad of Wallis Island!”