Anemone (dir. Ronan Day-Lewis)

by Jack Martin | Nov 10, 2025

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 121 mins

UK Distributor: Universal Pictures

UK Release Date: 7 November 2025

WHO’S IN ANEMONE?

Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Bean, Samantha Morton, Samuel Bottomley, Safia Oakley-Green

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Ronan Day-Lewis (director, writer), Daniel Day-Lewis (writer), Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Brad Pitt (producers), Bobby Krlic (composer), Ben Fordesman (cinematographer), Nathan Nugent (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A former soldier (Day-Lewis) reunites with his brother (Bean) after living in isolation…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON ANEMONE?

Nepotism has become a trending topic among Hollywood enthusiasts over the last few years, with a new generation of talent like Maya Hawke, Jack Quaid and Margaret Qualley being (quite unfairly in my opinion, since many of them have proven to be genuinely talented performers and creatives in their own right) accused of having their careers practically handed to them on account of their parents being highly influential figures in the industry. But every once in a while, you get one or two so-called “nepo babies” who try to break free from the shadows of their more famous elders and just can’t, not helped by the fact that those very elders have been roped in to help out their offspring in a way that doesn’t really benefit either of them artistically.

Sadly, Ronan Day-Lewis – the son of none other than Daniel Day-Lewis himself – falls into that category, as his feature debut Anemone, which he directs in addition to co-writing with his father, is the kind of film that exists only because this would-be visionary happens to have a three-time Oscar-winning and newly unretired acting titan as his conceiver. There is seriously no other reason for this film to be a thing, for it fails quite spectacularly at being anything remotely compelling, even with the quality of talent involved.

Day-Lewis (the actor) stars in the film as Ray Stoker, a hermit who lives alone in a woodland cabin where he is unexpectedly visited one day by his estranged brother Jem (Sean Bean). He’s there to persuade Ray, a military veteran who after an incident during the Troubles retreated from civilisation, to return to his former partner Nessa (Samantha Morton) after their teenage son Brian (Samuel Bottomley) finds himself in a pit of despair. And, honestly, that’s about it in terms of actual plot.

How, you may ask, can a film like Anemone with the razor-thin narrative it has pad itself out to just over two hours? I’ll be honest, I have no idea, partially because I zoned out so many times during this movie out of sheer boredom that I’m pretty sure I briefly lost consciousness at one point. In fairness, it’s extremely easy for your attention to wonder during this film, because Ronan Day-Lewis is too busy trying to establish himself as a visionary filmmaker rather than a storyteller, which would be fine if there was enough substance within the style to make it work despite the lack of traditional narrative tools, except that a lot of the stylistic choices he runs with ultimately serve little purpose. Sure, Ben Fordesman’s cinematography is pretty and all, but there’s nothing in the actual script department to support such vivid visuals, some of which briefly venture into fantastical territory such as a climax that’s one amphibian away from being the ending to Magnolia, though Day-Lewis’s film fails to earn such an out-there conclusion since it barely feels like you’ve even started a journey with these nothing characters.

I say “nothing,” only to remember that they’re only there to spout monologue after monologue that both Day-Lewises have overwritten to the extreme. This isn’t so much of a film as it is a drama student’s monologue book disguised as a film, and while they’re well-performed (it’s Daniel friggin’ Day-Lewis, so of course they are) they hardly substitute for a compelling narrative. Not only that, but they all feel as though they go on for what seems like an eternity, as R. Day-Lewis refuses to trim any of them down even well after the point has been truly established, suggesting a fatal preciousness to the wrought material he and his father have conjured that slows an already lethargically paced movie down a whole lot more. Sometimes, the monologues that D. Day-Lewis and Bean deliver (mostly the former, because of course) either end up being about nothing in particular or about things which are simply baffling, like one early soliloquy where Day-Lewis’s Ray describes in vast detail a vile encounter with the priest that molested him as a child, where the act of paedophilia itself surprisingly isn’t the most disgusting part.

One cringes at the mere thought of legitimate acting royalty like Daniel Day-Lewis deliver such a gross monologue, let alone having his own son direct him whilst doing do, though not as much as the fact that he agreed to partake in what is essentially a low-key vanity project for both father and child. There’s something about the way that the actor is framed and lit where, even in moments where his character is clearly supposed to be in the wrong, it seems as though he is at the very centre of this universe, his perspective being the one that others, including Bean who along with Morton is largely wasted in what is largely a passive listening role, attempt to understand and occasionally even succumb to. Of course, much of that could be attributed to Ronan whose unrestrained style, not to mention the fondness he undoubtedly has toward his father, adds to that sense of overinflated ego which often comes with empty visual spectacles such as this, but surely part of the blame falls on the actor himself, who didn’t just contribute to his son’s overly artsy vision but brought himself out from the depths of what had to have been a comfortable retirement in order to do so.

I can’t even say that it’s among the year’s absolute worst films, because it is at least shot well and the performances themselves are good. But given who’s involved as well as the high likeliness that nobody was around to say “no” to any of this heavy indulgence, Anemone is a disastrously dull failure of a movie that will have you doing the unthinkable and wishing that Daniel Day-Lewis had never returned to acting.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Anemone is a terminally dull vanity project for Daniel Day-Lewis and his filmmaker son Ronan, whose overwritten monologues in place of compelling narrative tools turn it into a lethargic, if well-shot and well-acted, bore.