Daniel Day-Lewis’ post-retirement film is a waste of time
movie review
ANEMONE
Running time: 126 minutes. Rated R (language and traumatic revelations). In theaters.
Daniel Day-Lewis should’ve stayed retired.
Or at least come back in a better movie.
But the three-time Oscar winner couldn’t resist returning for his first film since “The Phantom Thread” eight years ago — the abysmal “Anemone.”
The title of the movie, directed by his son Ronan Day-Lewis, refers to a pretty flower. Don’t come looking for anything beautiful here, though. This grueling hike through the Forest of Pretentiousness is closer in spirit to a sea anemone, an ocean creature whose sting causes itching and a rash.
I certainly wanted to scratch my eyes and ears out while Ray (Daniel Day-Lewis), a gruff man who lives in a shack in the Northern England woods, delivered an endless, unbelievably disgusting speech about fecal matter and how he got back at a sexually abusive priest by eating curry for three days.
He’s telling his yucky tale of the turd — one I won’t soon forget! — to his estranged brother, Jem (Sean Bean, present and accounted for), another grim-faced gent who he hasn’t seen in 20-some years and who’s just arrived at his hut. Jem wants Ray to come home. We gradually learn, sort of, why Ray is all alone out there as the film languidly, coldly and sleepily unfolds.
The reason has to do with the fact that both men fought during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, a conflict that’s been dealt with onstage and screen many, many times before.
In another extended spiel, Ray recounts his worst day in the British Army that changed his life forever.
“Anemone,” which had its world premiere in the New York Film Festival, is not so much a movie as it is a series of loosely related, hot-glued traumatic memories.
And it’s monologue mania. Daniel jabbers for minutes on end, and usually in one long, retina-numbing shot.
It’s not exactly breaking news to say that Daniel Day-Lewis is a fantastic actor. And glimmers of his irrepressible power break through here.
Only with such a poor, stagey and un-involving script, which the father and son wrote together, our brains keep checking out no matter how entrancing the actor’s performance is. Well, except during that early stretch when I wanted to run out and hurl.
The movie also hops over to Jem’s suburban house, wherein lives Nessa (Samantha Morton) and her adult son Brian (Samuel Bottomley), who’s just bloodied his knuckles in a fight. Those scenes, practically in grayscale, are even more sedate, like being stuck behind a stander on an airport moving walkway. Morton wants in on the monologue action, too, so she performs one about Ray.
Jem and Ray occasionally walk around the surrounding area with no clear purpose other than for the director to capture exciting images.
They trek through an empty carnival, the kaleidoscopic lights of which just so happen to all be on. Ray goes running on the beach as waves crash in a moment that feels like it should be affecting and cathartic. Nah, it’s just a dude jogging.
Ronan has a flair for visuals, no doubt about it. And I liked looking at them. The trouble is his slideshow of impressive landscapes and environments evokes nothing deeper and, actually, is a roadblock to character development and story momentum. Scenic detours.
Near the end, there’s an apocalyptic, Seventh Plague of Egypt-scale hail storm that crushes cars, roofs and windows. It is never brought up again.
And, despite being a dad-son project, in the grand scheme of Daniel Day-Lewis’ illustrious career, “Anemone” might best go unmentioned also.
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