Tom Basden Wants the Heartwarming Success of ‘The Ballad of Wallis Island' to Give British Indie Filmmakers Hope

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5 hours ago

Even Tom Basden is surprised by how affecting his new film is.
The Brit, who stars in and wrote The Ballad of Wallis Island with comedian Tim Key, is talking to The Hollywood Reporter about finally getting his film out in theaters in his native Britain and, oddly enough, being a little taken aback by its reception.
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'We hit a few ideas early on,' he explains, referencing the short film he, Key and director James Griffiths first made about the characters all the way back in 2006. 'Herb's a little bit washed up, pining for his mid-20s, Charles has been obsessed with this band for a very long time and used to watch the gigs with his wife, who's now died. Quite organically, a sadness began to come out on the page, a kind of longing,' Basden recalls. 'It took us by surprise. And even at the point where we were watching a finished film with an audience, I don't think we realized how emotional those threads were. It's very hard to plan for the moments that the audience is going to become emotionally invested.'
Basden and Key's comedy-drama debuted earlier this year at Sundance, later earning a limited theatrical release in the U.S. in March before it hit theaters in the U.K. in May through Focus Features. It follows musician Herb McGwyer (Basden), formerly half of folk duo McGwyer Mortimer, who has been contracted to play a private gig on the remote Wallis Island by widowed superfan Charles Heath (Key).
But things start to go awry when Herb discovers Charles has also invited ex-bandmate (and actual ex) Nell Mortimer, played by Carey Mulligan, to join. Akemnji Ndifornyen stars as Michael, Nell's American husband, and Sian Clifford as Amanda, the island's sole shopkeeper. What transpires is a film bursting at the seams with heart, adored by laymen and critics alike.
'We drew up a list for who could play the part of Nell and Carey was at the top of that list, but we didn't know her,' says Basden about getting Oscar nominee Mulligan on board. 'Tim had been emailed by her about five years earlier, so he had her email by stealth and basically cold-called her.'
According to Basden, Mulligan connected with the material immediately. 'She just really responded to the script — I think she wanted to do a comedy,' he says. 'She'd done quite a lot of, let's say serious, quite dark films in the last few years. She wanted to do something that was more comic and more touching. She really believed in it as it was, and had exactly the same aims for the type of film that we wanted it to be.'
After the release of their 2007 short, Basden and Key left Wallis Island well alone until 2018. It was then — and with the help of an industry-shattering pandemic — that the pair returned to their feature-length dreams in earnest.
The low-budget movie got everything it needed in just 18 shooting days on location, but even at a cheaper rate, it took some time to find the financing.
'We really believed in the script and we deliberately made it very small,' says Basden. 'We're all in our 40s, or in James's case, 50s. We've made a lot of TV, we understand budgets. We made it a very small film with a very small cast, all shooting in basically two locations and even so, we struggled to get any interest,' he admits. 'We were turned down by all the funding bodies in the U.K.: Film4, the BFI…'
'And Tim is such an idealist that he always believed we'd make it,' continues Basden. 'I'm a bit more defeatist. (Laughs.) Then we sent it to Carey and not only do you suddenly have something quite real to hold onto — a genuine, Oscar-nominated film star attached to your film — but it gives renewed momentum and confidence for us that people, someone like Carey, really likes the script. But it just feels quite arbitrary, the funding system in the U.K… It's a fundamentally British film and it's done best in the U.K., but it took American money to actually get the thing made.'
Basden hopes that The Ballad of Wallis Island — a well-received, popular movie written and starring British talent, about British people and shot in Britain — will provide hope to fellow filmmakers. 'I believe that it's possible in cinema to make things that are original and also really popular,' he says. 'There shouldn't be this divide between reboots, sequels, recycled IP and live-action and then the slightly soporific art-house movies. We must be able to make stuff that's original and funny and moving but also can be popular and attract a mainstream audience. I haven't given up on that.'
One of the more amusing aspects of releasing the film both in the U.S. and in the U.K. has been seeing different reactions from Americans and British audiences to the adventures of Herb, Charles and Nell. He says that being in the States when The Ballad of Wallis Island debuted reminded him that his project was 'very much an international movie.'
'They'd never seen anything like Tim's character,' he remembers. '[They were like], 'He just makes no sense to me.' And then you show it in the U.K., and we all know people like that. One in four people in the U.K. are like that,' he says of Charles' bumbling awkwardness and quirky personality. 'It's a very different thing [in the U.K.], where people just tap into the very British subtext of it. But American audiences have been really into it. I think they feel like they've discovered something really fresh.'
The heartwarming success of The Ballad of Wallis Island has only left fans with one question: what do Basden and Key have planned next? He jokes: 'Carey talks passionately about the sequel and I think, because we made the short and 18 years later released the feature, I think 18 years later we should come back and make the sequel to the feature. Maybe Charles and Amanda will get married, and McGwyer Mortimer are playing at the wedding.'
He tells THR that him and Key have a few ideas they're working on — one or two of which they are 'very excited by.' For now, the duo are trying to soak up the fervid fan reaction to this pretty neat indie they've put out into the world. 'There'll come a point where we think about another one, maybe with a slightly bigger budget [and] made with love… But it feels very special to us that we've got here.'
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