380. Anchor and Hope; movie review

ANCHOR AND HOPE
Cert 15
113 mins

BBFC advice: Contains strong language, sex references, sex, nudity

Well, well... what would Charlie Chaplin have made of his grand-daughter starring as a lesbian who is inseminated with a syringe by her girlfriend.
Charlie was a controversial personality but I am not sure cinema audiences of his day would have accepted the subject matter of Anchor and Hope.
Actually, a comparison with his screen era and the fact that Chaplin's grand-daughter, Oona and daughter, Geraldine, star in Jules Nurrish and Carlos Marques-Marcet's film, shows just how far we have come in accepting what would have been seen as non-conventional lifestyles.
Thankfully, gay couples having children are not particularly unusual nowadays - indeed Mrs W and I know of a pair who both became pregnant with the same method as Oona Chaplin's character Eva.
Eva shares a barge with her girlfriend Kat (Natalia Tena) and on a drunken night reveals that she wants a baby.
She is only taken seriously in the cold light of day and then eyes turn to the couple's visiting friend (David Verdaguer).

As all discover, trying for a child, whatever the scenario, pulls on previously untapped emotions and Anchor and Hope is punctuated by laughter and tears.
Both Oona Chaplin and Tena convince as a couple whose free and easy life on the canals of inner city London looks rather tempting until the real world beckons.
Meanwhile, the characters of Verdaguer and Geraldine Chaplin offer very different slants on the couple's modern relationship.
Indeed, there is a particularly poignant scene involving real-life mother and daughter.
Anchor and Hope begins as a gentle which prompts a good giggle and then becomes serious to the point of upsetting.
The only element which we didn't find believable was its rather convoluted ending.

Reasons to watch: An unsual but convincing romance
Reasons to avoid: rather too explicit at times

Laughs: Three
Jumps: None
Vomit: Yes
Nudity: Yes
Overall rating: 7/10

Director quote - Carlos Marques-Marcet: "The story stems from a mixture between all the lives of the film-makers, screenwriters and actors. For instance, the idea of setting the movie on the London canal came from the fact that actor Natalia Tena lives on a house-boat there."

The big question - If we have moved on socially so much in the last century, how much more can we evolve?

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