Anemone

Anemone is a redemptive tale, but slow and dark and haunting, sometimes slipping into fantasy and playing out like a fairytale, and sometimes unfolding like a Greek tragedy. As films go, it’s a triumph.

Ronan Day-Lewis makes a superb debut with this expressively shot and scored tale of familial reconciliation. The cast, led by the great Daniel Day-Lewis, is uniformly spectacular.

Anemone does a capable job of building up the mystery at its heart, waiting and waiting until the pressure builds before finally giving both audiences and its characters a release valve — primarily through yet another tour-de-force monologue that Daniel Day-Lewis makes a meal out of, as he's done many a time before.

This family endeavour is an acting masterclass, and we should be grateful that it’s lured Daniel Day-Lewis back into acting after eight years in the metaphorical woods.

It’s a transcendent performance, somehow both a miracle and the kiss of death. It is good enough to almost elevate the entire movie above its many awkward shortcomings. And yet it also crystallizes those shortcomings.

It’s mostly a dirge, but the younger Day-Lewis has an artful eye and his indecently talented dad is clearly crying out for better material.

Daniel Day-Lewis has emerged from retirement to do something he has never done before — make a truly horrible movie.

I appreciate films that embrace quiet moments and don't necessarily jump from dialogue to dialogue continuously, that said I felt there were many moments where quiet tension felt a bit dragged out. The quiet moments were trying to enhance the visual storytelling (which is shot beautifully, cinematography is great) or emotional tension, but in my opinion the audience can appreciate the visuals, and get a sense of quiet understanding pretty quickly. Given the powerful imagery, I wanted to see more of that and maybe shorter moments but more interwoven angles would have maintained the tension while still offering more information to the audience. That said, I loved the power and pressure of the natural surroundings that the film presented. The verbal storytelling + monologues from the characters were entrancing and felt very genuine. The writing and performances were compelling (as one would expect given the casting). The music score reinforced the interwoven tension as well. Unfortunately, I suspect it is not a drama that all viewers will appreciate but it is undeniably a striking film that I'm grateful to have to experienced; I would encourage anyone who appreciates drama to see it.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

‘Anemone’ looks good. It sounds amazing. And mostly it feels like a very green director trying to use all his Really Cool Scene ideas in one go.

Good performances are buried under an unnecessarily long and padded runtime. They could have cut a good 20-30 minutes from the film, and it would have been all the better for it.

Daniel Day-Lewis came out of retirement to star in this film, which he co-wrote with his son Ronan, who also directed. The very thin plot involves a brother (Sean Bean) travelling to the countryside where his brother (Day-Lewis) lives a hermit life after a life-changing event. Meanwhile, the wife and son (Samantha Morton and Samuel Bottomley) deal with the issue back home. This basically involves minimal dialogue with Day-Lewis getting 2 juicy monologues. Otherwise, there’s lots of dull scenery, long slow tracking shots and interminable pauses. This is an extremely self-indulgent project, rendered more so by the sluggish direction and tedious editing. Sure, Day-Lewis wants to support his son in his first feature, but he should have continued to enjoy his retirement instead…certainly more than I enjoyed this experience.