Filmed: October/November 1994
Billy.......................Douglas HENSHALL
John......................Dan MULLANE
Sara......................Jacqueline LEONARD
Old man.................Ron OLIVER
Child Billy...............Elliot Henderson BOYLE
Child John..............Ryan SMITH
Synopsis :
Based on a story by Elizabeth Jane Howard Three Miles Up tells the story of Billy and John two brothers who are spending some time on a barge on the Fens together. One night they call into a pub, where John phones his wife. In the pub he urges Billy not to blow the whistle believing it will bring bad luck, but Billy goes ahead.
We learn that Billy has had a nervous breakdown. When they were boys the bothers' parents' had died. Their mother had drowned. Billy remembers something terrible happened the day they went to the fair. They had missed the bus home after playing truant from school and knew that their Mum would be angry with them.. Billy keeps imagining that he sees and hears their mother calling for help in the water.
On the journey they meet the mysterious Sara who they find asleep under a tree. They ask her to join them on the barge. Both of the brothers open up to Sara. Billy says he has never married because he just wants someone to look after him. John says that he was jealous because their Mum always treated Billy as the baby. Later he tells Billy that he was the one who looked after him and not their Mum.
When the brothers are working out which way to travel, Sara suggests they should choose the ‘third way’ her way to the village. They pass an old man at one of the locks who tell them that the village is ‘Three Miles Up’. One night John thinks he has found the village and he moors the boat there. But the next day Billy tells him he can’t see the village. The village has disappeared. They continue the journey. Now it is a boy at the lock, who tells them the village is 'Three Miles Up '.
Is time going backwards? Sara declares that all little boys are stupid and starts to put her hair up in a similar way to the woman in Billy’s only photo of the brothers with their Mum. Left alone the brothers seem to be boys again. They decide to 'return home' go through the door of the cabin, which is now flooded as it is in Billy’s dreams.
Links:
BFI Database