Anemone (15)

Jem Stoker has been estranged from his brother Ray for 20 years. During those two decades, Jem has sought refuge in his faith and the love of his partner Nessa while Ray has forged a solitary life in self-imposed exile. Nessa's troubled son Brian faces dire repercussions after he lashes out at bullies. Concerned about the young man's mental wellbeing, Nessa entreats Jem to deliver a handwritten letter to Ray to implore him to return home and explain the past to his son.

LondonNet Film Review

Anemone (15) Film Review from LondonNet

Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis comes out of retirement to deliver a thunderous and uncompromising performance flecked with simmering fury and tear-sodden anguish in his son Ronan’s audacious feature directorial debut. Fractious family dynamics are at the gnarled, blackened heart of Anemone, co-written by two generations of the Day-Lewis dynasty. Shot on location in the north of England and Wales, this unremittingly bleak drama repeatedly venerates style over substance, drawing attention to bold directorial flourishes and impeccably composed tableaux at the expense of storytelling clarity, full-blooded characterisation and dramatic expediency…

A freak hailstorm, which unleashes cricket ball-sized pellets of ice on the cast, is staged with breathless brio and the image of a giant fish floating downstream in lustrous slow motion is haunting but both vignettes serve no clear narrative purpose beyond demonstrating the younger Day-Lewis’s artistic flair. The script builds gradually to the revelation of a dark family secret, spoken aloud in the film’s turbulent second act, along with the sobering truth about a merciful act that has been misconstrued as something untoward.

Meaty, emotionally wrought monologues, delivered with typical aplomb by older Day-Lewis, fill in the blanks. Co-star Sean Bean attempts to match the snarling ferocity. Both men end up wrestling in the mud. Gorgeously framed inserts of trees swaying in the breeze, a hilltop-trek framed by the ochre glow of the sun and Mother Nature’s fury bloat the running time beyond two hours.

Jem Stoker (Bean) has been estranged from his brother Ray (Day-Lewis) for 20 years, haunted by a family history scarred with violence and regret. During those two decades, Jem has sought refuge in his faith and the love of his partner Nessa (Samantha Morton) while Ray has forged a solitary life in self-imposed exile in a primitive cabin in the woods. Nessa’s troubled son Brian (Samuel Bottomley) faces dire repercussions after he lashes out at bullies taunting him about his father Ray.

Concerned about the young man’s mental wellbeing, Nessa entreats Jem to deliver a handwritten letter to Ray to implore him to return home and explain the past to his son. Long-forgotten resentments bubble to the surface as siblings revisit old grudges and the shattering truth of Ray’s actions during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Jem compels his brother to confront these phantoms but Ray resists opening old wounds: “I don’t owe nowt to nobody.”

Anemone is an artfully staged meditation on abandonment, guilt and intergenerational trauma that keeps us at arm’s length from the on-screen despair. This sensorial overload, crafted in collaboration with cinematographer Ben Fordesman, struggles to make an impact beyond its technical execution. The older Day-Lewis is gifted the lion’s share of the verbal fireworks (“Got me girl, got me son, got me life. What else so you want?!”) while Morton and Bottomley are short-changed in their disappointingly limited screen time.

– Jo Planter