Anemone Review – Daniel Day-Lewis is an endlessly watchable ex-soldier who lives with guilt | film

TIt’s the sheer authority and power of Daniel Day-Lewis that ultimately carries this film, and what a joy it is to see him back on screen. But without him, this film’s overwrought, repetitive dramatic gestures and its sensitive narcissism of masculinity might have been harder to accept. Even with Day-Lewis, in fact, there are difficult moments in the dialogue, and at the end of both big speeches you might imagine your drama teacher saying: “…and…a scene!”

However, Day-Lewis’ innate control of the moment and his address to the camera – that wonderful theatricality and artifice evident even in his most matter-of-fact performances – make him endlessly watchable. Here he is supposed to play a former army sergeant. I would rank it higher than that. It is a film that Day-Lewis co-wrote with his son Ronan, who also directed it. It is about a father coming to terms with his neglect of his son. We have to make of it what we want.

Day-Lewis plays Ray, a man living the life of an ascetic hermit in a remote forest hut somewhere near the coast in Britain in the late 1990s, radiating angry integrity and self-reliance, growing anemones that his father also grew. Watching this, I realized how much I want to see Day-Lewis play Timon of Athens.

Suddenly, Ray’s brother Jim (played by Sean Penn) shows up on a mission to ask Ray to return home to his wife Nyssa (Samantha Morton) and teenage son Brian (Samuel Bottomley) – even though this is the family Ray has long left, and with whom Jim was already living as husband and father, much to Ray’s anger.

Brian has followed his father by joining the army and gets into big trouble due to a violent fight. He needs to reconnect with his father, and both father and son (and brother) need to let go of their toxic masculinity and hurt. Ray must come to terms with the abuse he suffered, and must talk about why he was forced to leave the army after his last tour of duty in Northern Ireland, many years ago. When we hear about these terrible events during the Troubles, it is a kind of fraud. It’s made clear that Ray isn’t really guilty of anything we might consider guilty of – and yet Day-Lewis sells it wonderfully. He couldn’t help but look like an exiled emperor.

This is a film that, to use the Scottish phrase, has no small opinion of itself; A film of big scenes, big performances, big images, manifestations and hallucinations. Not all of them succeed, but Day-Lewis’ presence makes or break the matter.