3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Ballad of Wallis Island

2025, James Griffiths (Cuban Fury) -- download

British "feel good" movies are a staple in our household, but I was left not sure if I wanted to consider this being about feeling good. Sure, it ends on a melancholy smile, but much of the movie is about feeling uncomfortable, and that is most often not my bag.

I can imagine that is going to be (a version of) the opening paragraph for pretty much every British Feel Good Movie we write about.

Charles Heath (Tim Key, Wicked Little Letters) is an eccentric young man living pretty much alone on an island off the coast of Wales. No, its not entirely empty, but its still glaringly remote. And much to the surprise of "past glory" folk singer Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden, Plebs) whom Heath has invited to the island to play a concert. A concert is too generous a word; he wants McGwyer is play for him, alone. He tosses 500k Herb's way to convince the incredulous man. 

And then Herb's ex, and ex music partner, arrives. You see, they were a folk music phenom sometime in the early 2000s and Charles was a super-fan. Then he won the lottery, twice, and after having spent the first fortune on traveling, he spent the second fortune to hide away here on Wallis Island. McGwyer Mortimer were his and his wife Marie's shared love, though you get the idea it was more her than him. Then she died, and he now consoles himself with everything McGwyer Mortimer. Except, the band broke up, contentiously. Herb, whose real name is Chris Pinner, is desperately trying to (re)create a career, while Nell (Carey Mulligan, Drive) is now a hippy in Portland, yes Oregon. She was told they were both coming, Herb was not.

The movie is a triad of discomfort. There is the locale, the remote rustic island, where there has to be other people, but we really only ever see Charles one neighbour, Amanda, who runs the island's "general store", and that is being generous. They are all staying in Charles run down country house, and even if they wanted to get off the island, they would have to wait for single boat that comes this way, on its own time schedule. Then there is the relationship between Herb and Nell. She has obviously moved on, bringing her tentatively friendly American husband along with her, but Herb is lost in the past, and still very much in love with Nell. And finally, there is Charles himself, who is painfully, terribly awkward both from being a man who lives alone on a lonely island, but also, he's quite the nerd. He's endearing in his own way, but...

I was fine with the movie, but for one thing -- the music. I am a fan of the last couple of decades of nouveaux pop folk music, much of it British, but the music in this movie, all written and played by Tom Basden, who is not a musician but a comedian, seems to reflect a nostalgia for 70s 80s folk instead of what it is now. It was less Damien Rice / Lisa Hannigan or Angus & Julia Stone (yes, they are Australian) and more Joanie Mitchell. But then again, maybe that's me, being on the peripheral and I never did see the original short this is based on. But, the music did not click for me, and that was supposed to be kind of the point.

But the cast is charming, and the filming is luscious and terribly isolated, which I am a fine of, so yes, some Feels Good. Its one of those movies where I am very much more fond of the pitch, than the execution.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Bank of Dave

2023, Chris Foggin (This is Christmas) -- Netflix

I feel we watch a lot of British "feel-good" movies, and yet not enough to have created a tag. I am sure I could (not so) easily go back, add the tag, and make it a long list. Usually there are underdogs trying to accomplish something, often they biopics, sometimes they are even romcoms. But usually they are unlikely people we just end up feeling the need to root for. In the back of my brain, the best example of the genre was a 1998 movie called Little Voice but to be fair, I haven't seen the movie since then. I think it might have been one of those sharing moments between Marmy and me.

Dave Fishwick was a real guy, who started a bank in the UK -- well, technically he got a consumer credit license and opened a "peer to peer lending model" establishment, but that's splitting hairs. The movie sells the grander idea of "the first bank in the UK in a 150 years". But Dave, the guy, was real, and he owned a mini-bus business, a quite successful one at that, and he was known for helping out people in his community with loans. And the one day he decided to make it successful.

Dave (Rory Kinnear, Years and Years) is almost a secondary character in the movie, with Hugh (Joel Fry, Yesterday) his lawyer playing the leading role, the London solicitor who is sent up north to take Dave's money, guide him through the process, which everyone, including Dave, expects to fail. At first Hugh is a fish(wick) out of water (#groan), his introduction to Burnley (north of Manchester) via an incomprehensible accent, but soon he comes to love the sincere, warm love of community the place, and Dave's friends, has. 

But how to make him a bank? First he has to take on High Street, including members of the banking establishment who want to end this upstart's attempts to nose in on their world. This is early 2000s, after the economic collapse, and people don't like banks or bankers, so they make a good Bad Guy. They make a weak attempt to have Dave branded a felon, which would invalidate him from getting a license, but they fail through the usual impassioned speech in the courtroom. The next hurdle is securing £10,000,000 required reserve amount, which was accomplished through a rock concert and a handful of benevolent investors, including Hugh himself. And thus Burnley Savings & Loans was opened.

The sweet side story is Hugh growing affection for Burnley and Dave's niece Alex (Phoebe Dynevor, Bridgerton), a local doctor also going up against "the man" by trying to secure funds for a local walk-in clinic. She expects to be her uncle's first customer. But he does not trust London lawyers, until Hugh's unassuming and gentle demeanour wears her down.

All in all the movie served up all the expected feel-good notes, with a good amount of comedy, some quirky characters, some nefarious villains to hate on, and a rousing climax which included a concert by Def Lepppard, yes the real band. No, that did not happen in real life, but I sort of envision a non-purple-suit elevator pitch from the real Dave himself, "Hey, can we get Def Leppard in the movie? I know a guy who knows a guy who knows the band !!"

Uh, there is a tag. Time to start retconning the posts.

3 Short Paragraphs: Blinded by the Light

2019, Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham) -- download

The fun thing about these times is the underlying emotional current that is constantly flowing in me, even when I am not paying attention to me. So, when the classic Springsteen songs charged with pain began playing in Gurinder Chadha's latest movie, I felt myself washed away to my own teen years in the late 80s. And those were not happy times.

Chadha tells the story of Javed, a teenager in Luton, a small city with diminishing jobs, white nationalists and very little to offer the aspiring writer. His father, recently laid off from his own factory job, wants nothing more than Javed to educate himself locally, get a decent job and earn money for the family. Nobody understands him. That is, until a Sikh friend gives him a cassette of Bruce Springsteen, well a pair -- Born in the USA and Badlands. And those songs of a working class man wanting more than to escape his life & his world with the girl of his dreams were lightning in a bottle for Javed. Exposed primarily to 80s New Wave (his best friend and neighbour is in a band) and the music his parents allow him to listen to, this jolts him from just being upset about where he is going towards actually pursuing what he wants.

This is a typical over the top British feel good movie, meant to transport you away on a cliche story with a twist. But really, what dragged me in was my own connection to these songs. I went through the exact exposure Javed was, and while I may not have had the blue collar background, I felt the need to escape my small world, and what it expected of me. Springsteen's songs are poetic, angry, lyrical and charged with pain. "Gonna be a twister to blow everything down. That ain't got the faith to stand its ground. Blow away the dreams that tear you apart. Blow away the dreams that break your heart. Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted." And in these painful memories, I felt some release of this bottled up pain of late. Some.