(Credits: Far Out / Martin Kraft / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons)
Thu 26 February 2026 12:30, UK
Sometimes, cinema can be a fantastic antidote to the world going on around us.
We seem to be living in a fairly bizarre set of times and circumstances at the moment, and the escapism of a movie that can make you forget about it all for ninety minutes is worth its weight in gold. One of those films is undoubtedly The Ballad of Wallis Island, starring Carey Mulligan.
If ever there were a cinematic equivalent of a warm hug, a gentle squeeze on the arm and a reminder that kind souls prevail, then it’s last year’s British comedy drama that sees Tim Key’s island-dwelling eccentric becoming so fond of an estranged musical duo that he blows a lottery win on attempting to get them back together.
There’s no violence, no gore, barely any bad language, just superbly-penned, smile-inducing dialogue and equally effective folk songs with three brilliant central performances from Key, Mulligan and Tom Basden. Mulligan, aside from being one of this nation’s finest actors, is no stranger to folk music, what with being married to a Mumford, but it’s a reminder of her range, given she’s been so good in the past five years or so in markedly different films like Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman.
Mulligan collected a second Oscar nomination for that one and swiftly followed it up with a third for her work on Bradley Cooper’s vanity project Maestro in 2023. That places her pretty high up on the list of female British actors; Kate Winslet has seven Oscar nods, for example, while Vanessa Redgrave earned six. Mulligan also has four Golden Globe nominations, including one for her breakthrough role in An Education in 2009.
That film proved to be the making of Mulligan, leading to several major movie roles, including the sequel to Wall Street, Ryan Gosling’s Drive and the bleak Michael Fassbender movie Shame, which also earned her award nominations, but despite securing a number of main character roles she still had to audition for a part in the much awaited, David Fincher directed adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s detective books.
As Mulligan told Little White Lies: “I auditioned three times for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The first audition I did, I don’t think I was sort of in his (Fincher’s) mind for it. So the first audition I did for the casting director without him. And then the second was with him and the third one was with him. He is very specific. He tells you exactly what he wants you to do. He’s very kind. I was intimidated, but he was very… He’s very direct. I like people who are direct.”
Mulligan saw the role of the shadowy computer hacker Lisbeth Salander as an opportunity to break away from some of the costume drama she’d been doing at the time; however, the part eventually went to Rooney Mara, who, alongside Daniel Craig, put in a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination.
The film was also a considerable commercial hit, bringing in almost $300million at the box office against a budget of less than $100m. Mulligan was undeterred, however, and the same year landed a part opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in the lavish Baz Luhrmann-directed The Great Gatsby and the beautiful Coen Brothers film Inside Llewyn Davis.
She will soon get the chance to work alongside Daniel Craig, however, in the upcoming fantasy adventure Narnia, directed by Greta Gerwig, which is due to have a limited IMAX release at the end of November this year, before hitting Netflix on Christmas Day.
