While it’s only April, I can confidently say that The Ballad Of Wallis Island will be regarded as one of the most lovely films released in 2025. It has drama and tastes of cynicism, but, as I note in my four-star CinemaBlend review, it has a tremendous amount of warmth telling a story about the value of closure. And yet, as someone who loves horror movies, I can’t help but note how the basic setup of the plot could be the first act of a slasher.
In the film, a musician moving into the second half of his career (Tom Basden) is hired by a wealthy oddball (Tim Key) to perform on a remote island… but there are some key details about the gig that are left out of the agreement. Ultimately, those details include the fact that the musician will be playing for an audience of one, and he will essentially be forced to reunite with the other member of his disbanded folk duo (Carey Mulligan). It’s light drama, but things could have taken a much darker turn, and Key (who co-wrote the script with Basden) acknowledged that darkness when I interviewed him last month. Said the actor/writer,
I think as a sort of a pitch, it does sound like it could go that direction. That was never quite the plan, but also yeah, it could sort of feel like kind of crass and sort of creepy. On paper, my guy's a bad guy, and to be fair, they're mercenaries and so everyone's bad. So that's your starting point, and then you sort of gotta try and turn that round by actually what you write and how you perform it.
As featured in the video at the top of this interview, I had the chance to talk with Tim Key, Tom Basden, Carey Mulligan and director James Griffiths during the virtual press day for The Ballad Of Wallis Island, and my very first question regarded how the film’s first act could become the start of a horror story with some tonal tweaking. It doesn’t go that way, but Key did acknowledge that the characters aren’t exactly angels: Charles (Key’s character) acts in bad faith not telling Basden’s Herb McGwyer about his plans, and Herb and Carey Mulligan’s Nell Mortimer are arguably selling out by performing the concert in exchange for a massive payday.
Because the scale of the story in The Ballad Of Wallis Island is so small, the film is really dependent on the attitudes and impressions of its characters guiding the tone, and that was something that Tim Key explained in further answering my question. All of the players in the plot (nobody really fits into traditional “protagonist” and “antagonist” roles) are flawed, but they experience tremendous growth during their experience together on the titular isle. Key continued,
That's sort of the balancing act that – you wanna make him a sympathetic person and you want to gradually realize this comes from a really warm, tender place, which it does. In the writing of it, you don't bring that in until later and you gradually realize where everyone comes from with their own characters, and hopefully, you feel some kind of sympathy for the guy. And also he's quite annoying, so you have to let battle against that as well.
Charles is annoying, but it’s a lovable kind of annoying by which you can’t help but be charmed.
Also starring Sian Clifford and Akemnji Ndifornyen, The Ballad Of Wallis Island is now playing in theaters, and if you’re looking to smother yourself in the cinematic equivalent of a warm blanket, it’s a must-see.
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