Anemone (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

ANEMONE (2025)

Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Bean, Samantha Morton, Samuel Bottomley, Safia Oakley-Green, Sid Akbar, Lewis Ian Bray, Paul Butterworth, Karl Cam, JP Conway, Angus Cooper, Adam Fogerty, Richard Graham, Mark Holgate, Holly Rhys, Jag Sanghera, Shaun Mason and Eve Townsend.

Screenplay by Ronan Day-Lewis & Daniel Day-Lewis.

Directed by Ronan Day-Lewis.

Distributed by Focus Features. 121 minutes. Rated R.

Daniel Day-Lewis came back to acting after several years of retirement for this???

Okay, it is the first directing job for his son, Ronan Day-Lewis. A dad has got to be supportive, right? In fact, Daniel even co-wrote the screenplay, sort of helping to give his kid a leg up in the movie biz. After all, if not for the participation of Ronan’s famous dad, Anemone probably wouldn’t have been made, right?

The question is, though: Would that be a terrible thing?

On the plus side, Anemone is about an important subject. It has the tragic Irish heft of a James Joyce novel or a Eugene O’Neill play. When it does hit the mark, particularly in one specific scene, the film is quietly devastating.

As the old Monks song goes, “Nice legs, shame about the face.”

Because when Anemone goes astray – and believe me, it doesn’t work way more often than it does – the film is kind of shocking in its strangeness. Not only that, but the film also – just like its main characters – nearly refuses to explain itself.

I literally spent the first half hour or so of the movie trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. I mean, a movie doesn’t have to spoon-feed you every plot point, but they should at least give the audience enough information that they would actually know what the storyline is supposed to be.

For example, at one point Jem (Sean Bean) has tracked down Ray (Day-Lewis) in a remote cabin. They haven’t seen each other in years (apparently). We have no idea what their relationship is and who they are to each other. When Ray sees Jem, he allows him into his cabin, shares some food with him and they sit around together sullenly, with barely a word spoken, and absolutely no explanation of why they are there.

This begrudging doling out of information may be endemic for the characters, but it shouldn’t be for the screenplay. Minor plot points (and major ones) have to be pulled out of the film slowly like extracting a rotted tooth. At one point my mind became so disengaged from what was happening that – I hate to admit it –I seem to have dozed off for a minute or two.

Even the most basic facts are somewhat hidden. I assumed, just from the setting, the time period and the general morbidity of the characters, that Anemone must undoubtedly revolve around the IRA and The Troubles, the violent 30-year conflict between Protestants and Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland.

Yet, the film does not acknowledge that simple fact until nearly 2/3 of the way through the movie, and then, it just casually mentions the conflict in casual conversation. Instead the film boggles the mind with strange plot strands like levitating women haunting the cabin, extraordinarily violent hailstorms, a UFO and an extra-terrestrial looking sculpture. (Or was it an alien creature? Who knows?)

But then, out of nowhere, Anemone has a simple scene – a basic monologue by the Irish seaside at night in which one of the characters finally – finally – explains himself. He tells a long, detailed story of his experience in the war and how it gave him a lasting sense of PTSD. There – for a brief while – the audience can see what the film is trying to get at. It is finally working and is actually pretty powerful.

Honestly, the story he tells, while horrific, is no worse than what many soldiers have gone through – and lesser than many others – to the point that you are not sure it would have caused this man to leave his family and separate himself from the world for over 20 years. But war is terrible, and it hits different people in diverse ways, so who am I to question his reaction?

Sadly, soon after that scene is over, it’s back into the muck, and the story stops making sense again.

As for Day-Lewis’ acting, it’s terrific, as always. It just seems to be wasted on this script and this character, which are both such enigmas that Oscar-level acting is just garnish. Bean and Samantha Morton are both fantastic too, but to what ends?

Anemone appears to want to be looked upon as an award-bait work of art. However, it’s so caught up in its own reflection that any good parts that may appear – and they are there, peppered in throughout, although not nearly often enough – are swallowed up by the pretension, the senseless plot threads and the oddly incoherent symbolism.

It’s not necessarily a dreadful thing that Anemone exists, because it does seem to have reignited Daniel Day-Lewis’ passion for acting, and he is now talking like his retirement from film is over. That can only be a good thing, right? I just wish I didn’t have to witness him re-lighting his fire in this particular way. 

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: October 2, 2025.