★★½☆☆
27 June 2018
A movie review of ANCHOR AND HOPE. |
“But she doesn’t want it,” Roger (David Verdaguer)
The ending is so trite as to ruin the film. ANCHOR AND HOPE asks a very important question: What happens when two people are in love, and one desperately wants a baby and the other most definitely doesn’t? Cinema rarely deals with the issue. Maybe it is a struggle to fund intelligent dramas about adult topics? Two hours is enough time, as evidenced here. The story should have concluded a few minutes earlier. Up until that point it had not provided the answers (and didn’t need to), but the upbeat choice a scene later is a complete misfire. It reminds of the dire HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU (2009). You don’t have to deliver glibness, just ask the questions and show the aftermath. There might not be a neat resolution.
The ending is so trite as to ruin the film. ANCHOR AND HOPE asks a very important question: What happens when two people are in love, and one desperately wants a baby and the other most definitely doesn’t? Cinema rarely deals with the issue. Maybe it is a struggle to fund intelligent dramas about adult topics? Two hours is enough time, as evidenced here. The story should have concluded a few minutes earlier. Up until that point it had not provided the answers (and didn’t need to), but the upbeat choice a scene later is a complete misfire. It reminds of the dire HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU (2009). You don’t have to deliver glibness, just ask the questions and show the aftermath. There might not be a neat resolution.
ANCHOR AND HOPE provides a scenario where an impasse has been reached, yet a satisfactory solution is not achieved for both in the relationship. So much of the runtime is a demonstration of compromise not being a possibility. It is a binary decision: You either have a baby or you do not. There is no middle ground. The movie is about how one backed down after repeated coercion, and finally due to watching her partner’s emotional distress. It must be an agonising decision to walk away from happiness because of the chasm in maternal/paternal calling.
Instead of the male reluctance cliché, it benefits the debate by having the couple as two women. Eva (Oona Chaplin) and Kat (Natalia Tena) are winsomely playful. They live on a houseboat travelling around the canals of London. Their lack of materialism and interest in conservative mores means they are not influenced by mainstream society’s pressure on women to procreate. (For an entertaining film exploring that topic, check out PREGGOLAND (2014).)
Eva it seems is now ready for a family and roots, while Kat is ever the happy wanderer. This is what movies should be examining. Most are about finding the one and then a simplistic happily ever after. Finding someone long-term is only one hurdle. The real trick is to maintain love as two people become familiar, and evolve at different speeds and in different directions. ANCHOR AND HOPE is doubly disappointing, as it almost offered something wise and comforting.