Anchor and Hope

There's a potentially smart and sexy lesbian dramedy at the heart of "Anchor and Hope" that gets lost amid idiosyncratic filmmaking and a lack of narrative discipline.

With its predictable story unlikely to leave a lasting impression, it's left to Chaplin and Tena's natural chemistry and performances to make Carlos Marques-Marcet's second feature-length film worth your while.

It's a thoughtful, honest and touching work, especially for women who love women, and also love canals.

Fey and feel-good are never far off. But the churn of darker water, in middle and late scenes, makes the journey interesting.

A magnetic journey that reconfirms that cinema is nothing more than a reflection of real life. [Full Review in Spanish]

Don't get sold into the light-hearted, bittersweet, sugar-coated casing of this film. David Verdaguer's scene-stealing performance simply can't save Anchor and Hope from its archaic representation of women. Who let this be made?

Where Anchor and Hope badly misfires is in the assumptions it makes about what women want, and how women get it.

The story of a lesbian couple trying to have a baby is well-executed on nearly every front.

A good cast and novel setting is wasted on this tired and slow gay "having a baby" romance that lacks the warmth or wit to draw us in.

Too often, viewers just have to take a movie love story's word for it that its characters actually belong together. Not so in Carlos Marques-Marcet's loose, observant Anchor and Hope.