ANEMONE
(director/writer: Ronan Day-Lewis; screenwriter: Daniel Day- Lewis; cinematographer: Ben Fordesman; editor: Nathan Hugent; music: Bobby Krlic; cast: Daniel Day-Lewis (Ray Stoker), Samantha Morton (Nessa), Sean Bean (Jem Stoker), Samuel Bottomley (Brian), Paul Butterworth (Mr. Jarvis), Safia Oakley-Green (Hattie, Brian’s girlfriend), Richard Graham (Poacher 1), Lewis Ian Bray (Poacher 2), Adam Fogarty (Des), Angus Cooper (Jimbo), JP Conway (Martin); Runtime: 121; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Dede Gardner; Focus Features; 2025-UK/USA)
“The performances are much better than what can be expected from the muddled screenplay.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The 27-year-old painter son of Daniel Day-Lewis, Ronan Day-Lewis, makes his directorial debut and co-writes the atmospheric, emotional and arty traumatic family drama with his dad. It’s a visually beautiful arty film that suffers because it’s banal and underwritten.
Day-Lewis is 8 years away from retirement after acting in 2017’s “Phantom Thread.” He returns to the screen to play a guilt-ridden Brit soldier named Ray Stoker seeking redemption for neglecting his son and for something he mistakenly did as a soldier during a covert action in a war zone that led to a tragic outcome.
Ray in the 1990s is living off the grid in an austere cabin as a hermit in a remote Northern England forest when he’s surprisingly visited on a motorcycle by his estranged younger brother Jem (Sean Bean). Their meeting is tense without any hugs, as he brings a letter from his estranged wife Nessa (Samantha Morton) urging him to come home and help their troubled bullied twenty-year-old Army son Brian (Samuel Bottomley). He’s gone AWOL after a violent brawl at the base and is not leaving his room at home while dealing with his mental issues. The kid never met his dad, as Jem married his mom when Ray left home twenty years ago for reasons explained later on in the film.
Ray was forced to leave the Army after his tour of duty in Northern Ireland during the time of the Troubles (from 1968 to 1998).
The performances are much better than what can be expected from the muddled screenplay. It ultimately asks if healing is possible when Ray returns to visit his estranged family. The presence of Day-Lewis makes the bleak character study worth watching despite its unfulfilling story.
The title is taken from the Anemone; a white flower the brother’s dad was fond of that symbolizes loss.
It played at the New York Film Festival.
REVIEWED ON 11/22/2025 GRADE: B-
dennisschwartzreviews.com