Henry O'Brien
No matter what Anemone was going to be, it will undeniably be placed in the same category as Lincoln and Phantom Thread as the film that got the legendary Daniel Day-Lewis out of a self-imposed “retirement.” While Day-Lewis has been cagey about whether he was actually in retirement, eight years between Anemone and Phantom Thread speak for themselves.
Still, it’s always a pleasure to have the three-time Academy Award winner back on the silver screen. Day-Lewis unsurprisingly makes an electric and captivating return to cinema, even as Anemone, which made its world premiere at the New York Film Festival this weekend, suffers around him. The film, a first-time directorial effort from Day-Lewis’s son Ronan, lacks any form of distinction and expression. Even with passing references to regional conflicts, Ronan’s movie has all the warts of a first-time director sloppily attempting to get anything to stick, and nothing really does.
It tells the story of reclusive former soldier Ray (Day-Lewis) reuniting with his brother Jem (Sean Bean), and features allusions to traumatic events in his life, including The Troubles and rape. Ray and Jem’s interactions shift between cold, warm, rowdy and angry, underscoring that the brothers’ relationship is more amorphous than meets the eye. Yes, there’s much to argue about and reckon with. But there is a genuine love between the brothers.
Bean holds his own with Day-Lewis, but the legendary actor steals the show the second the camera finds his face. It doesn’t take too long for Day-Lewis to deliver a legendary monologue about his past, where he channels many of his greatest characters. Namely, there’s a cadence that feels all too familiar to an unhinged Daniel Plainview. It’s boring to say that Day-Lewis still has unparalleled talent, but Daniel Day-Lewis has an unparalleled acting talent.
The movie struggles, however, anytime Day-Lewis is off-screen, and there’s plenty of time where that happens. The B story for the picture is, like the main plot between the two brothers, one long conversation, except this time with Ray’s estranged family: son Brian (Samuel Bottomley) and wife Nessa (Samantha Morton). The mother and son have heavy talks on who Ray was and what events happened that Brian doesn’t know about.
While the film rests on Ray, Brian is the narrative engine as Jem goes to see his brother because of his nephew’s supposed worsening condition. The problem with this table-setting is that the movie does very little to back up how dire of straits Brian’s in. Samuel Bottomley does a decent job playing an emotionally scarred child, but Ronan’s writing offers very little underneath the surface of the script.
The conversations between Brian and Nessa have a flaccid quality that seeps any intrigue from the experience. Nessa keeps emphasizing how little she knows about Ray’s backstory, even as we are figuring out the details from the two brothers. The result is some jarring and frustrating cross-cutting that wants to pontificate on family dynamics, but ends up dragging the picture along in the mud.
Anemone really only works in a meta-cinematic sense; the film itself really is just about wondering where the hell Daniel Day-Lewis ran off to. The actor has typically been a recluse, which only adds to his mystique. And the movie, a full-on family affair, mind you, doesn’t make Ray’s exile look all glamorous. Rather, it takes on a militarized quality where Ray looks like he will murder any outside intruders.
The 27-year old Day-Lewis attempts a bold, yet self-contained family story that displays his inclinations as an auteur. He creates atmospheres and set pieces that do have some genuine tension; the sound design might be the strength of Anemone in its sudden, horror-movie-like thuds. But all of it feels weightless, especially as Ronan relies on contrived dramatic beats and an ending that could be the definition of predictable in the dictionary or thesaurus.
There is potential for Day-Lewis’s son as a director, but it would be better if he had a solid screenwriter by his side. Hell, if the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, he could be a legendary actor in his own right.
