In his 2014 Goya-winning feature debut, “10,000 KM,” Spanish director Carlos Marques-Marcet compellingly explored the emotional and spiritual exhaustion of long distance relationships. In the filmmaker’s sophomore effort, “Anchor and Hope,” a bittersweet romcom about love, life and longing which reunites his “10,000 KM” leads, he charts the distance between two lovers living in incredibly close quarters — a houseboat that floats along the London Canal — where communication isn’t as pleasant as it seems on the tranquil surface.
READ MORE: Review: Stirring Long Distance Romance Tale ‘10,000 KM’
Eva (Oona Chaplin) and Kat (Natalia Tena), are ferociously in love, impossible to separate and fill the close confines of their already cramped life. One night, Roger (David Verdaguer), a womanizing friend visiting from Barcelona, helps enable a debauched evening. His arrival also inadvertently triggers a crisis in this seemingly harmonious relationship; Eva wants a child, Kat believes it a narcissistic idea, but suddenly, in this night of excess, a drunken, dubious plan is hatched with Roger involved as the sperm donor.
The next morning, once sobriety hits, all three parties realize the agreement they’ve come to. Surprisingly, the process moves forward regardless; Kat continues to harbor real reservations while distancing herself from Eva. Meanwhile, Eva doubles down on the idea of motherhood and Roger, usually, an inveterate man-child, finds himself immersed once the concept evolves beyond a joke. What ensues is an unorthodox journey to start a family that is familiar, but intimate in its study of relationship doubt, tension and stress.
The sense of neatly packed chaos never leaves the underbelly of the film as this triangled relationship becomes more complicated. Love is messy and long-term relationships messier still, and the script by Marques-Marcet and Jules Nurrish capitalizes on those uncomfortable moments. To its credit as well, the screenplay rarely sails in a straight line and there’s authenticity to the ideas that self-realization doesn’t always hit at opportune or beneficial moments. Rather than indulging in easy answers or romantic seductions and betrayals, the film goes the slice-of-life route, watching as the couple’s joy ebbs and flows.
Where the writers falter is in the pacing and initial characterization of Kat and Roger, the latter of whom unrealistically transforms from a juvenile dude into a mature chap looking forward to fatherhood far too quickly. Additionally, Kat isn’t as richly drawn as Eva, and it’s easy to fall on the side of the latter as she’s forced to contend with Kat and Roger’s impulsive nature. The film, with its sometimes heavy-handed metaphors of drifting aimlessness, is loose-fitting too—twenty minutes could easily be thrown overboard—and the filmmaker drags out the overstuffed third act, which already contains two endings, needlessly.
For such a standard and quiet story, “Anchor and Hope” is beautifully captured by cinematographer Dagmar Weaver-Madsen as she portrays the clutter and grime of the canal with the same amount of care as he does catching the light that falls on the electric colors of Eva’s funky outfits. Normalcy, as dictated by Madsen and Marques-Marcet, can be just as lovely as anything extraordinary.
For all its little issues, “Anchor and Hope” is tremendously aided by three fine performances. Like the boat she lives on, Tena perfectly captures Kat’s unfiltered and untethered way of life, content to simply float along until met with the next great adventure. All three of the leads share warm chemistry, but it’s best between Tena and Chaplin (two actresses who coincidentally also caught their first big breaks on “Game Of Thrones” though never at the same time). Chaplin is remarkable, all wide eyes and bright smiles that hide a fear she’s burrowed inside of her, while Verdaguer, the most familiar of the characters, turns Roger into someone compelling, nuanced and as just as worthy of happiness.
About the inner workings of relationships and how the people within them grow, self-sabotage and learn over time, curiously enough, “Anchor and Hope” sometimes suffers from too much silence in the in-between moments, but also occasionally fails in its inability to level emotion with subtlety. But at its base and its best, the “Anchor and Hope” moments where the characters gently live and grow with one another are worth living with. [B]
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Here’s the Spanish-language trailer if you want to absorb some of its flavors.