Before A24, there was Focus Features, and if you’re to believe a certain strand of lapsed movie fan rhetoric, there’s still only one show in town. Debuting their first flick back in 1999, the independent cinema mainstay was the 21st century’s first example of hip studio branding, the mere sight of their logo during the opening credits sending an excited murmur across a darkened auditorium. Titles like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Brokeback Mountain, and Lost in Translation had a whole generation of burgeoning film snobs singing their praises, though ‘cool’ is nothing if not fleeting. Chugging along into 2020’s, Focus’ distribution of the occasional critical darling (Tár, The Souvenir) or award season favorite (Conclave, The Holdovers) might portray them as a collective with its finger still firmly on the pulse, but are really more of an elongated last gasp. Their positioning in the vanguard has largely receded, and if The Ballad of Wallis Island tells us anything, they’re aging along with their mid-aughts champions.

Their staunchest advocates might see something of themselves in director James Griffiths’ first theatrical feature in over a decade, a pocket-sized, humanist dramedy set on the titular landmass just off the Welsh coastline. The mostly barren rock is home to Charles Heath (Tim Key), an eccentric millionaire who pays a vast sum of money to host a private concert in observance of the fifth anniversary of his late wife’s passing. Her favorite artist was McGwyer Mortimer, the since-estranged folk duo who accept individual invitations, though the surly Herb (Tom Basden) is kept oblivious to the imminent arrival of Nell (Carey Mulligan), his erstwhile paramore. 

If this is all giving off a distinct aroma of scary movie premise, you might just be a victim of our ‘elevated horror’ moment. Focus and Griffiths certainly aren’t picking up on the unsetting vibes, their movie playing out in a parallel universe where Neon and A24 haven’t completely eaten their lunch. The staunch obliviousness to both skepticism and nefarious ulterior motives feels like a holdover from a bygone era, which is far from coincidental. Adapted from Griffith’s 2007 short film The One and Only Herb McGwyer Plays Wallis Island, the whole thing doesn’t feel like a descendant of 2000’s micro budget multiplex offerings so much as one of their ilk who’s only now seeing the light of day. Even the music is transported from an indie folk scene that’s two decades removed from its moment in the zeitgeist, symbolic of a studio once at the cutting edge who now finds itself at risk of falling off the other side of modernity’s expanse.

But being of the moment isn’t everything; in fact, Wallis’ truest sympathies lay with the character most firmly behind on the times. A whirlwind of grating niceties and antiquated pop culture references, Key’s simultaneously charming and off-putting turn immediately calls The Office to mind, and not the American version. Where the stateside remake allowed Michael Scott the requisite time and nuance to turn his worse jokes back around, Ricky Gervais was forced to watch them die on the vine, a fate revisited in the awkward silences that follow Charles’ every jest. He’s the star of the show, despite Basden’s more centralized role, and Mulligan’s more familiar name, which was undoubtedly key to securing funding. The latter two possess the breezy naturalism of shared history, but honing in on a strained romance might have been a little too tactile. Best let David Brett take the lead.

Repurposing a long dormant television character as a protagonist is only the tip of the iceberg where jaunts to the recent filmic past are concerned, Wallis’ fish-out-of-water narrative gaining novelty by virtue of the format’s decreased prevalence. It also marks Griffiths and company as punchlines of their own set-up, lightly poking fun at their players’ outmoded worldview with humor that’s long past its expiration date. There are chortles to be had at shout outs to ABBA and Judi Dench dad jokes, but everyone should be aware by now of rice’s facility as a wet phone cure all, and not knowing what Reese Peanut Butter Cups are just strains credulity. The quips here treat innocuousness as a guiding light, though they’re not alone in that regard.

In an unforeseeable twist of fate, the movie’s 2025 setting is far less equipped to handle the artist patron relationship than The Brutalist’s 1940’s visitation of similar subject matter. Where Brady Corbet’s Oscar-winning epic observed both the benefits and detriments of allowing money men direct access to the creative flame, Wallis sees nothing wrong with Charles financing his own fantasies, even when his actions veer dangerously toward voyeurism. The screenplay, penned by Key and Basden, is simply disinterested in any friction that extends beyond love lost and found, though the target audience here will likely be fine with having all their knotted issues untangled for them in advance. 

No one should have to apologize for enjoying a neatly arranged, uncomplicated time at the picture show, and if you listen closely, you can already hear an older set excitedly recommending Wallis with a twinkle in their eye. The lightness of touch in its exploration of grief keeps the whole thing from tipping over into a saccharine puddle of its own making, but that’s awfully light praise for a studio that once prided itself of challangeling, prescient output. Perhaps that’s to be expected; who among us, when nearing their third decade of life, doesn’t take on a more traditionalist affectation? The field of provocateurs has become overcrowded. There’s still ample pasture available in the recent past, you just have to plug your ears, close your eyes, and march on.