'The Ballad of Wallis Island' is the loveliest movie of the year

It's never a bad time for a film like "The Ballad of Wallis Island," but at the moment it feels like a much-needed balm.

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Modest in scope and made with the lightest of touch, not unlike the lovely folk songs that populate its soundtrack, it's also deceptively powerful: A gentle ode to moving on, in quirky packaging. This is a movie about a kind, chatty man named Charles (Tim Key) who invites his favourite folk band to play a concert on the remote island where he lives alone in a massive old home.

Charles is a semi-recluse only by circumstance: He's holed himself up in this home full of eccentric acquisitions over the years after a lucky lottery win (there's another punchline there, but I won't spoil it). Wallis Island, though beautiful and serene, with white cliffs and rocky shores (it was shot in Wales), is not the kind of place where there's a lot of socializing, but there is quite a bit of time for reflection, hobbies and, probably, talking to oneself at length. And Charles's greatest passion is McGwyer Mortimer (Tom Basden and Carey Mulligan), a once popular folk group who have not been together, professionally or romantically, for almost a decade.