Daniel Day-Lewis’ return to acting in drama Anemone has divided critics following its premiere at the New York Film Festival on Sunday (September 28).
Directed by the actor’s son, Ronan, the film stars Sean Bean as a man who travels into Northern England’s woods to reconnect with his estranged brother (Day-Lewis), who lives as a hermit. The multi-time Oscar winner was last seen in Paul Thomas Anderson’s drama Phantom Thread in 2017, after which he announced he would retire, citing “sadness” as the reason for stepping away.
However, he reversed his decision in order to star in the new film, which the actor revealed was motivated by the desire to work with his son. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could do something together and find a way of maybe containing it, so that it didn’t necessarily have to be something that required all the paraphernalia of a big production?’” he told Rolling Stone earlier this month.
However, critics seem divided over whether the decision to return was a good idea.
In a two-star review for The Guardian, Adrian Horton called the film “a bleak and painfully serious misfire.” “It’s gray-skies-only for the film’s plodding two hours” she continued regarding the film’s tone, later adding: “It’s a bleak mood, at times effective – I occasionally found myself aching for a hug – and more often alienating.”
Variety’s Owen Gleiberman wrote: “I think it’s touching that Daniel Day-Lewis came out of retirement to launch his son’s movie career. That’s a dad for you! And I have no problem with the nepo babyness of it all. But Anemone is still a dud of a movie — aridly pretentious and static, with too much self-conscious art photography and gloomsday indie rock and not enough drama.”
One of the harshest verdict’s came from the San Francisco Chronicle’s Mick LaSalle, who called the film “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.” He concluded that the film was “the worst film Daniel Day-Lewis ever made and the worst he ever will make, unless he and his son are planning a sequel.”
A warmer response came from The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin who, in a four-star review, wrote: “Its two central performances pair perfectly. Bean is subtle, reactive, intuitive, funny, while Day-Lewis is every bit the marvel you remember: every gesture, every glance, every twinkle comes freighted with wiry intention.”
IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio also remarked: “That a movie like Anemone could only have been made by the forces of nepotism that govern it is not something to ignore, but this dark, dense, deep two-hander about the Troubles in Ireland turns out to be quite better than you’d expect from that notion.”
Anemone is released in UK cinemas on November 7.