Likable, laid-back and low-key, this indie Brit movie from first-timer Tupaq Felber takes its characters on a bittersweet midlife trip on a narrowboat down Surrey’s beautiful River Wey. We get crisp black-and-white cinematography, heartfelt performances and relaxed, improv-type dialogue.
The story is about three male actors between jobs, mates from way back, like The Inbetweeners 30 years on. In vague charge of their river holiday is Jon (Jon Foster), then there’s Simon (Simon Meacock) and Zooby (Jamie Zubairi). For the first bit of the journey they share the boat with their friend Red (Robyn Isaac), who has to leave early to go to a wedding; she has a bit of difficult shared history with one of the guys. Isaac shows how tense her character is about the amount of money she owes for her reduced share of the boat hire and food, a supposedly casual negotiation in which her own status and friendships within the group are at stake. After drinking heavily together, the bantz kicks in and they’re all hysterically laughing at each other like Ricky Gervais mocking Karl Pilkington. Afterwards, the brutal hangover accelerates the group’s mood swing towards seriousness.
But is there an elephant wedged into the narrowboat and getting ignored? Red’s quick departure certainly puts their gloomy male bonding into perspective. In some ways, this is the kind of movie I’d expect to come to from the US, rather than Britain: freewheeling, not hitting its dramatic beats too hard and keeping the mood flowing, with some lovely shots of the glorious countryside they’re drifting through. It presents the amiably surreal experience of coming alongside total strangers walking on the bank, close enough to start conversations. Yet the voyagers themselves aren’t really all that close to each other. It’s a gentle, charming study of loneliness.
• This article was amended on 7 December 2018. An earlier version named the wrong character in the film when it referred to Amanda, played by Amanda Rawnsley. The lead female character is Red, played by Robyn Isaac. This has been corrected.
