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4.8/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 4.8/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Three Men in a Boat remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
If you have a soft spot for old British guys making a total mess of simple daily tasks, you should put this on right now. It is absolutely perfect for a lazy Sunday afternoon when your brain is half-asleep. 🛶
But if you cannot stand crackly 1930s audio and posh people shouting at each other over a tin of fruit, you will probably want to throw your screen out the window.
Based on the famous book by Jerome K. Jerome, the story is basically just three friends who think a river trip is a great idea. Spoiler alert: it is not.
They bring along a fox terrier named Montmorency, who is honestly the only smart character in the entire runtime. I spent half the movie just watching the dog's face in the background because he looks so deeply disappointed in his humans.
The film has this incredibly loose, almost amateur feel to it. It is like the director just let the camera run and hoped for the best while the actors scrambled around.
Take the tent scene, for instance.
They try to set up a canvas cover in the pouring rain, and it goes on for what feels like ten minutes of pure, clumsy slapstick. You can tell the actors actually got wet and miserable making it, which makes it way funnier than it should be.
William Austin plays Harris, and he has this massive, twitching mustache that deserves its own billing in the credits. He looks like he got lost on his way to a silent movie set and just decided to stay.
He keeps doing these wild double-takes that are so outdated they actually become funny again.
The pacing is totally all over the place, though.
Sometimes a scene just stops dead in its tracks. Like, they will be talking about food, and then boom, we are suddenly looking at a lock on the river with absolutely no transition at all.
It reminds me a bit of the random flow in Loud Soup, where you just have to accept the weird editing and move on.
And then there is the famous pineapple tin.
If you know the book, you know the tin opener bit. They do it here, and they beat this poor can of fruit with everything from a heavy mast to a big rock until it looks like a squashed metal pancake.
It is delightfully stupid.
The audio is pretty rough in the print I saw, to be fair.
Everyone talks like they have a mouth full of dry biscuits, so you might need to turn the volume way up. Just be warned that the sudden splashes of water will probably scare your cat.
It is definitely a product of its time, much like Little Dorrit from the same era, where the camera just sort of stares at people while they talk in a room.
But there is a genuine warmth here that you do not get in modern comedies. These guys are complete idiots, but they are likeable idiots.
They do not have some big emotional arc or a lesson to learn about friendship. They just want to drink beer, avoid their wives, and not drown in three feet of river water.
I can really respect that.
Is it a masterpiece of cinema? Good lord, no.
But if you want to see a bunch of 1930s gentlemen get bullied by a small dog and a heavy canvas sail, it is well worth an hour of your life. 🐕
IMDb 4.9
1919
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