This new British movie is one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen

The Ballad of Walls Island is one of the best films of 2025, and bombards you with jokes throughout (Picture: Alistair Heap/Focus Features)

I’ve been truly bowled over by one of the most relentlessly funny films I’ve seen in The Ballad of Wallis Island.

I can’t stop thinking about it after watching it as the opening night film at the Sands International Film Festival last weekend.

A whopping 18 years in the making, The Ballad of Wallis Island is the ultimate labour of love having been developed from a 2007 Bafta-nominated short by its actor-writer team.

James Griffiths directed both the original and this new iteration, which is likely a major reason for its success this time around, alongside stars Tim Key (recognisable to many as Alan Partridge’s Sidekick Simon) and Tom Basden (seen in Ricky Gervais’s After Life and co-creator of Plebs).

Key plays eccentric lottery winner Charles, who lives on a remote island and invites one half of a formerly popular folk-pop duo to play a private gig.

But unbeknownst to singer-songwriter Herb McGwyer (Basden), Charles has also invited his ex and other half of the act, Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan), in a naïve attempt at reconciling his favourite act years after their messy split. And she brings her husband, Michael (Akemnji Ndifornyen).

Tom Basden (L) and Tim Key (R) star as musician Herb McGwyer and lottery winner Charles Heath, who invites Herb to a remote island for a private gig (Picture: Focus Features)

Obviously, awkwardness ensues.

And while it’s a simple premise – and one we’ve seen similar to before – it’s perfectly executed in the way it allows the film’s characters to really shine as they navigate their evolving relationships with one another.

The humour is constant, with jokes coming thick and fast largely thanks to Key’s Charles, who is charmingly bumbling and wittering; he can’t help himself but to comment on everything and fill every silence, peppering us with a barrage of observations and puns.

This type of character does read as especially British, but I defy anyone not to be won over by phrases such as ‘Dame Judi Drenched’ and the faint ridiculousness of Charles promising Herb that the lion claw style feet on his bathtub, while impressive, ‘aren’t real’.

In development for over 18 years, the film has expanded from a Bafta-nominated short (Picture: Focus Features) It’s written by Key and Basden, who have worked together in comedy for years, as well as helmed by the short’s original director James Griffiths (Picture: Focus Features)

You can only surrender to the pace of the film’s comedy, with the audience at my screening barely stopping laughing the whole way through.

But then Key also beautifully exposes the vulnerability of Charles underneath, adding real poignancy to certain scenes in a gorgeously balanced approach worthy of bagging an Oscar – if voters can get over their traditional aversion to recognising the type of expertise that goes into a knock-out funny performance.

He’s the beating heart of The Ballad of Wallis Island but only works as well as he does thanks to the rhythm and flow in the script and between all the characters.

Basden’s Herb is the ideal foil to Key as Charles, grumpy and exasperated, with his reactions providing plenty of laughs and perfectly demonstrating the legacy of the professional relationship the duo has built over years of working together on the comedy scene.

Key’s Charles steals the show in a truly Oscar-worthy performance (Picture: Alistair Heap/Focus Features)

Mulligan is also nicely cast as Nell, providing the grounded, dramatic yin to Key and Basden’s established comedic yang. Nell is thoroughly tickled by Charles, like the audience, which helps Herb start to thaw to him too.

Ndifornyen as Michael is rather abruptly sidelined to keep things at a brisk 99 minutes, but it doesn’t seem a major sacrifice when there’s so much going on with the central trio – as well as a charming and tentative romance teased for Charles with Sian Clifford’s awkward shopkeeper, Amanda.

Given the name of the film and the occupation of its central characters, the music for The Ballad of Wallis Island is satisfyingly good – and buyable – as well. Basden totally convinces as a musical artist and is a pleasure to listen to, while Mulligan excels with lovely harmonies her husband Marcus Mumford (of Mumford & Sons) was able to lend a hand with.

Carey Mulligan (C) proves an excellent co-star for Basden – as Herb’s musical ex – and Key (Picture: Focus Features)

Composed by Adem Ilhan, the fictional band’s music nestles beautifully among these sorts of acts from the noughties, when Ilhan himself was releasing music; I immediately wanted to hunt down the soundtrack.

The film is the type of clever and specific ‘silly’ humour you can only get after the years of hard work, love and attention that have evidently been poured into it.

A gloriously British movie, The Ballad of Wallis Island is just a little bit magic – and thoroughly cast its spell over me.

The Ballad of Wallis Island was the opening film at Sands International Film Festival. It’s out in US cinemas now and will release in the UK on Friday, May 30.

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