Father and son, Daniel and Ronan Day-Lewis, co-authored the screenplay, with Ronan directing for the first time. It’s an intense, troubling story of multi-generational abuse and guilt, focusing on fathers, brothers and sons.
After making Phantom Thread for Paul Thomas Anderson (the director of One Battle After Another, now in theatres), Daniel Day-Lewis declared that the joy had gone out of filmmaking for him, adding that the work, although “vital and irresistible,” no longer felt like enough.
The prospect of collaborating with his son was sufficient to bring him back to the big screen. You can tell why he loved this part–not just because he contributed to its creation, but also because it suits his highly focused, Method-style approach to performance. He stars as Ray, an embittered man haunted by his late father, an abandoned son and his service in the British Army in Northern Ireland during the “Troubles.” In the present day, he pursues the life of a hermit deep in the woods of northeastern England, resigned to solitude, manual labor and drink.
His brother Jem, played by the formidable Sean Bean, cannot abide his brother’s absence. Hoping to persuade Ray to return to the big city (Sheffield), he ventures into the wilderness, both literally and figuratively. You can immediately tell that the brothers’ sparring has played out over many years, with so much remaining unspoken and unresolved. The stubbornness runs deep. When Jem tells Ray, “You’re goin’ to hell, brother,” it prompts a sardonic response: “Runs in the family.”
Jem lives with his wife, Nessa (Samantha Morton), and her son, Brian (Samuel Bottomley). She still carries a torch for Ray, her former lover, while Brian harbors strong feelings of neglect and resentment. No credit for substitute fathers here. With these actors and relationships in place, we have the ingredients for a gripping drama. Instead, the picture never really cultivates a consistent pace or tone, despite its thematic richness.
Not surprisingly, Daniel Day-Lewis makes the most of his character. The grizzled face, the wiry frame, the ominous pauses in his speech, punctured by ferocious outbursts–all of that defines Ray. However, the script withholds too much, and at too many crucial moments in the narrative. In fact, you may well find yourself craving the next Day-Lewis monologue to revive the story. (Two of them highlight the proceedings.) There’s introspection, and then there’s tedium.
Ronan Day-Lewis, a painter by training, does have a good eye as director. He certainly knows how to frame, light and shoot his father, such that you can appreciate all of Ray’s rough edges and (mostly) repressed shame. Working with cinematographer Ben Fordesman (Love Lies Bleeding), Day-Lewis delivers moments of poetry in many of the outdoor scenes, from painterly cloud formations to verdant green forests, golden wheat fields and waving seaside grasses to various manifestations of water.
Yes, the water. You’ll quickly recognize its quasi-religious connotations in Anemone. It suggests baptism and redemption, the expiation of sins and biblical plague. The symbolism is obvious and, frankly, a little excessive, even for an arthouse production.
The younger Day-Lewis has so much ambition that he dabbles in multiple genres. The problem is that they undermine the coherence of the storytelling. The movie’s screenplay and overall look certify it perfectly as a dark, British pastoral drama, except for the scenes at the family home in Sheffield. He also introduces elements of Latin American magical realism. In theory, they can work, but not in this case. They seem more absurd than magical. Again, a more fully-realized script and dialogue would have been preferable.
The supporting cast all acquit themselves reasonably well, given the material. Sean Bean (The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones), an actual native of Sheffield, has the presence and physicality to match Daniel Day-Lewis. Samantha Morton (Minority Report, The Whale) has a quiet intensity as a woman caught between a troubled son and a lost love. Samuel Bottomley (Everybody’s Talking About Jamie) expresses acute frustration and self-pity, yet mostly on one note.
If you admire Daniel Day-Lewis, a six-time Academy Award nominee and three-time winner, you’ll appreciate seeing him back on the screen in Anemone. As always, he thoroughly inhabits his tortured character, and he has movie star presence. His work epitomizes the art and craft of acting. (He received his knighthood in 2014 for his services to drama.) However, the film directed by his son is uneven, hampered by a frequently obtuse script, inconsistent tone and awkward editing. Oh, in case you’re wondering, the title has symbolic meaning, and the flowers don’t fare well in such a dark, forbidding climate.
