Daniel Day-Lewis has emerged from retirement to do something he has never done before – make a truly horrible movie.
It’s an experience every screen actor should have, but the opportunity had eluded the three-time Oscar-winning star until now. For “Anemone,” he wrote the screenplay himself, in collaboration with his son Ronan. And then, as if to ensure that no ameliorating outside influence could penetrate, he had Ronan direct the film, too.
The result is a movie that dares audiences to notice how awful it is, disguising its pristine ineptitude and triviality behind a façade of art film seriousness. The goal, it seems, was to make audiences believe there’s nothing wrong with the movie but something wrong with them.
But no, every possible thing is wrong with “Anemone.”
The problems even extend to the two long monologues intended to be the movie’s showpieces. In the first, Day-Lewis – as a misanthropic man who lives off the grid – tells of avenging himself on a pedophile priest, and in the second, he talks about an act of violence that transformed his life.
In both, it’s impossible not to be impressed by Day-Lewis’s concentration and magnetism. He is a great actor without question. But is this Day-Lewis’s idea of the perfect movie, that it should be a vehicle to showcase his mastery without forcing him to interact with other people?
Daniel Day-Lewis as Ray and Sean Bean as Jem in director Ronan Day-Lewis’s ANEMONE, a Focus Features release. Credit: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2025 Focus Features, LLC. All Rights Reserved. (Focus Features)
Monologues are all well and good, but a little more dialogue would have helped. Much of “Anemone” consists of Day-Lewis and co-star Sean Bean sitting with each other in silence.
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“Anemone”: Drama. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Bean. Directed by Ronan Day-Lewis. (R. 121 minutes.) In theaters Friday, Oct. 3.
As a director, Ronan Day-Lewis has one main strategy: to figure out what the audience wants and then deny it. In the beginning that means denying us a clear view of his father’s face. The elder Day-Lewis is filmed in shadow, from behind. At one point, he holds a hatchet in his hand, and the director gives us a close-up of his hand gripping the hatchet.
Then just at the point where we’re beginning to think that we’ll never get to see the lead actor, the director gifts us with a nice, brightly lit close-up. But by then, “Anemone” has come up with something else to deny the audience, which is any clue as to what the movie might be about.
Bean plays Jem, who travels deep into the woods to deliver a letter to his brother, Ray (Day-Lewis). The letter is from Jem’s wife, and eventually inspires the following flurry of scintillating banter:
Jem: Did you read it?
(Pause.)
Jem: Did you read it?
(Pause.)
Ray: No, I didn’t f-n’ read it!
Daniel Day-Lewis as Ray, left, and Sean Bean as Jem in director Ronan Day-Lewis’ “Anemone.” (Focus Features)
One of the hallmarks of the film’s approach to dialogue is that whenever someone asks a question, the other person doesn’t answer. At one point, Jem notices Ray tending to some flowers. Are those anemones, like their father used to plant? Silence. Of course, the title has nothing to do with the movie, but I suppose they thought “Anemone” had a nicer ring to it than “Two Old Drunks Sitting Around Not Talking.”
If you’ve seen more than 10 movies in your life, you know that when a filmmaker denies you basic plot information, it’s not because the information is so exciting you won’t be able to handle it. It’s because the plot is so mundane and unengrossing that the only option is to make a mystery of it. Their naïve hope is that, so long as they hold their cards to their chest, we’ll believe they’re sitting with a royal flush, rather than a pair of twos.
But “Anemone” is not even a pair of twos. It’s a total-nothing hand, the worst film Daniel Day-Lewis ever made and the worst he ever will make, unless he and his son are planning a sequel.
Mick LaSalle is the film critic emeritus of the Chronicle. Email: [email protected]
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