Jean Daste stars as a barge captain who marries a girl from a small village (Dita Parlo). She comes to live with him on his barge (L'Atalante) with his first mate (Michel Simon) and cabin boy (Louis Lefebvre). Parlo has never left her village and is excited that the barge will be making stops in big cities, like Paris. But she's less excited to learn of the bro-tastic bachelor lifestyle of the barge crew. The boat's infested with dirty laundry and stray cats, and although Daste loves Parlo, neither of them know what it's like to live together, especially under these conditions.
When things don't go as planned in Paris -- the first mate gets wasted and the barge has to depart early, before Parlo can have a night on the town -- Parlo ditches the boat and strikes out on her own. Embittered and heart broken, Daste leaves without her. Will they get back together? Is it Romancefest?
This whole thing basically sounds like a sitcom plot. That's because it is. But, the movie is so firmly rooted in the world of its characters that the material is elevated. We really get to know these characters and really get to understand what it's like to live on the boat and on the river. The movie uses its hackneyed plot as nothing more than an excuse to explore quirky characters and settings to their fullest.
The most fascinating character in the film is Simon as the first mate. He's big, dirty, loud and drunk. He's been all around the world, picks up junk at every port to store in his cabin, and doesn't know quite what to do with the newlyweds on board. He's the emotional core of the movie, and the greatest performance in it, and he gets to be the decisive one when it comes time to finally sort out this romantic mess. This might have been the beginning of the romantic comedy tradition of scene stealing sidekicks.
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