Review: ‘Anemone’

It turns out for actors, retirement is the same as when a boxer or professional wrestler retires. It doesn’t mean a heck of a whole lot, not even for Daniel Day-Lewis, who hung it up after his last acclaimed performance in 2017’s Phantom Thread. It took teaming up with his son, Ronan Day-Lewis, on the bleak, trauma-filled drama Anemone, to get him back in front of a camera. But not even the three-time Oscar winner can do anything to rescue this grim, plodding experience, with nary a ray of sunshine in sight. The words “nepo baby” were heard as I walked out of the theater, and while I think it’s too soon to tar Ronan with such an accusatory term, starting his feature career with this boring dreck does him no favors.

Daniel and Ronan collaborated on the Anemone screenplay, with the son making his directorial debut. One can imagine the two having a blast working together creatively, as they should. Too bad they didn’t give one another something mildly enjoyable to actually work on, bathed as this film is in gray skies, heavy silences of severe import, and grim tidings.

It begins with Sean Bean’s character Jem, offering a solemn prayer before saying goodbye to his distant, bloody-knuckled son Brian (Samuel Bottomley) and wife Nessa (Samantha Morton) and heading out into the English countryside by motorcycle, guided by gps coordinates. It’s there in the isolated Yorkshire woods that he finds his brother, Ray, played by Day-Lewis, who exiled himself there more than 20 years earlier. Ray doesn’t want to be bothered. He doesn’t expect to be bothered. His first reaction is to clutch a hatchet as if preparing to pull a Jason Voorhees assault. As the two brothers interact, mostly with Jem pleading to his obstinate, ferocious sibling, there’s always the chance that hatchet might get some use.

If there’s any reason at all to put yourself through Anemone it’s Day-Lewis’ intense performance. Like his Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York, his Ray is lanky, foul-tempered, vulgar, and cruel, with a violent strike as long as his mustache is thick. The first lengthy dialogue from him is a disgusting joke about defecating on a man who traumatized him as a child, and it’s so gross it might drive some people out of the theater early. Escapees would be doing themselves a favor because nothing that follows is nearly as energetic or exciting as Ray’s crass sense of humor.

Anemone focuses on two generations of broken men, battered by trauma, anger, pain, and guilt. Ray is tortured by the past and his experiences in the military of 1960s Northern Ireland, which drove him to seek isolation from those who need him. The rage building within him is something of a family trait, and now Brian is showing similar traits. Jem is there on behalf of Nessa, who hopes Ray can talk some sense into the boy. There’s a lot more going on within this twisted bloodline. It occasionally comes gushing out between long, pregnant pauses and meaningful glances from faces etched with hardship. Having fun yet?

Day-Lewis and Bean are both incredible actors, and the film mostly focuses on the two of them wallowing in mutual misery. They create such a dismal atmosphere that the occasional moments of levity; a drunken night of air guitar craziness, a cleansing swim in a nearby lake, feel like a thirsty man getting a sip of water. Flashes of surreal fantasy intrude but feel wildly out of place, invoking laughter as they immediately give way to more self-serious introspection.

Ronan shows flashes of brilliance, though. The film captures the darkening mood in shadow and fog, heavy storm clouds and intense rainfall to match the frowns and furrowed brows. Anemone is meant to be a weighty, serious movie and it is, relentlessly so. If the goal was to make an utterly joyless drama as an acting exercise, then the film was a tremendous success that father and son can watch together to their hearts’ content. It’s doubtful anyone else will want to sit through this more than once, if even that.

Anemone opens in theaters October 3rd.