Tom Basden Would Reunite the Smiths If He Could
It would be easier to bring half of the Beatles back to life.
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If you were one of these jerk-off billionaire oligarchs, whom would you hire to play at your remote island? That’s the premise of The Ballad of Wallis Island. Comedian Tim Key plays lottery winner Charles, who uses his money to compel his favorite band to reunite. The film also stars Tom Basden and Carey Mulligan as ex–bandmates and lovers McGwyer & Mortimer. Key (who co-wrote the film with Basden based on a short they made in 2008) says the premise of the film is “quite distasteful.” The trick to making this a comedy and not yet another “evil one-percent guy traps randos on an island” movie was making everyone worth caring about. “You root for the guy, even though you’re like, ‘He can’t just buy someone,’” Key said at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. “So we needed to make the characters fully formed, with a lot of aspects that were likable in addition. Because what’s happening in the middle of it is quite grubby.”
But back to that question: Whom would you use lotto money to compel to reunite? “I’d like to put the Smiths back together,” Basden said. “They certainly wouldn’t do anything together again.” Yeah, those guys haaaaaate one another. But it’s more likely than either director James Griffiths’s or Tim Key’s picks: Griffiths would reunite the Beatles (R.I.P.), while Key would just raise one guy from the dead, a small ask. “I wouldn’t mind having a look at Buddy Holly,” he told Vulture. “Let’s get Buddy down.”
We’re back at Sundance in the Vulture Spot, where we’re interviewing the casts and creators of the year’s buzziest films. Check out the rest of our coverage from the film fest here.
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