ANEMONE is fortunate in being able to call upon Daniel Day-Lewis’s first film performance in eight years. Although Ronan Day-Lewis manages to garner a performance of simmering intensity from his father, their co-written script is flat and opaque to the point of tedium. The younger man shows an eye for an arresting shot choice, but the film’s desperation for a crescendo moment or catharsis comes at the expense of a coherent narrative, theme or mood.
After a long sideways pan across a child’s drawing depicting The Troubles in Northern Ireland, our focus shifts to northern England, where Jem Stoker (Sean Bean) sets off in search of his brother, Ray Stoker (Daniel Day-Lewis), who relocated to the wilderness many years ago in response to something in his past as part of the British army in Northern Ireland. Ray’s adult son, Brian (Samuel Bottomley), has grown troubled and needs some closure and clarity from his father to navigate a difficult period in life.
ANEMONE begins with a foreboding and intense musical score over Jem’s pilgrimage on motorbike, and implies a profound reckoning with past, present, and possible future. The film’s wildly uneven quality is well exemplified in the fact that its first expressive moment afterwards is a childishly excruciating (and entirely fabricated) account of the time Ray defecated on the face of a sexually abusive priest.
“…the younger Day-Lewis also conjures some beautiful and evocative imagery to accompany his father’s performance. Still, ANEMONE fails to provide meaningful substance to which to attach them.”
Fortunately, the film’s register changes thereafter, with Day-Lewis’s performance as Ray building to an engaging expression of grief, regret and complex remorse which reminds viewers of his skill and intensity on screen. The directorial debut of the younger Day-Lewis also conjures some beautiful and evocative imagery to accompany his father’s performance. Scenes of sand blowing across dunes, storm clouds enveloping the horizon, and an incredible swoop across a coastline in darkness are all beautifully realised images. Still, ANEMONE fails to provide meaningful substance to which to attach them.
Instead, for much of the runtime, Jem and Ray bumble around the woods, speaking in intriguing but empty phrases about their time in the Army and The Troubles. Director Day-Lewis shifts focus occasionally to Brian and his mother, Nessa (Samantha Morton), in their sad suburban existence in Sheffield. Here, they also speak in regretful-sounding but sparse statements about Brian’s life and the effect of growing up without his father. There can be power in narrative ambiguity, allowing viewers to fill in blanks with their own preoccupations or to choose which themes they can read more strongly into. However, ANEMONE is so hellbent on providing triumphantly symbolic moments and imagery that it fails to deliver much text below which subtext could exist.
“…Daniel Day-Lewis provides a few compelling – and one standout – monologue moments, but the film has sunk into a tedious and repetitious pattern long before his best deliveries arrive.”
The film seemingly begins building to the inevitable homecoming and pseudo-redemptive conclusion, but reaches an apparent crescendo – visually, musically, and verbally – perhaps half a dozen times before a final sad limp into the credits. Daniel Day-Lewis provides a few compelling – and one standout – monologue moments, but the film has sunk into a tedious and repetitious pattern long before his best deliveries arrive.
There are allusions to religion, biblical stories and statements on the sins of the father, ideas fixed in a Homeric homecoming, and even the British state displacing occupational guilt to its citizens. However, an odd line here or there does not constitute a compelling theme just because it comes out of Daniel Day-Lewis’s mouth. The image of the anemone has many different meanings across various cultures, but it seems ANEMONE is so caught up in creating symbolic imagery that it forgets what any of this is meant to represent.