A care worker suffering from dreadful episodes of menopause takes her terminally ill sister on a canal boat trip, hoping that rekindling better memories of when they were young will make up for the years neglected.

SYNOPSIS:

Fifty-one year old care home worker Georgina Moncrieff is losing her only daughter to university, her sister Poppy to terminal cancer and she herself is tumbling down a waterfall of irritability and insecurity. Divorced and single, she lives in a tasteful tenement flat in the fetching Morningside area of Edinburgh with her daughter, Laura.

A woman who was once in control of her life, Georgina feels an increasing discontentment as her middle ages wade past her like a spectre in the marshes. Confused, she is desperately looking for the next chapter in her life. After her friends talk her into trying new things like yoga and salsa dancing, she disgraces herself publicly when she is unable to do them well, adding to her gloom.

Taking what was only meant to be a short holiday to Hertfordshire to see her sister, Georgina discovers Poppy is battling cancer. She is furious that she was left in the dark about her sister’s suffering, but this forces her into a journey of her own as she learns she must lose herself in order to find herself.

But nothing is straightforward for Georgina. After shuffling through a pile of unopened post, she finds that her father’s old boat has been kept in a marina since his death, five years ago, and the payments have run dry. Georgina and Poppy are determined to retrieve the boat, taking a haphazard trip through the canals. A woman who knows nothing about boating, Georgina has a growing dissatisfaction for her brother in law, Stu. His depression and seeming disinterest aids nothing to their new venture, and Stu reluctantly lets them go, because his own struggle means that he lacks the influence to stop them.

Anything could go wrong for the sisters, as Georgina can only just about look after herself, let alone the needs of her increasingly fragile sister. Farcical events ensue: the toilet doesn’t pump, the engine won’t start, and the canal locks are physically challenging. The more Georgina tries to remain in control the more she looses it – and her cool. Old wounds open up and new secrets are revealed as they clash about their current and past life decisions.

One beam of hope glistens in the ripples in the form of a beefy boater in the form of Keanu Reeves, who, even in Georgina’s worst moments, shines a smile her way. Is he only a concoction in a dream; a metaphor of her longing to be desired?

As close as the sisters are, Georgina revives her rivalrous feelings towards a forgiving yet fading Poppy, who in turn has sworn to keep a lurid secret - a death pact between husband and wife - all the way till the end.