Directed By Ronan Day-Lewis

Starring – Daniel Day-Lewis, Sean Bean, Samantha Morton

The Plot – In Northern England, Jem (Bean) heads out on a journey into the woods to reconnect with the estranged hermit brother, Ray (Day-Lewis) with whom he shared a complicated past that was altered by life-changing events decades ago.

Rated R for adult language throughout

ANEMONE – Official Trailer [HD] – Only in Theaters October 3

POSITIVES

There’s probably plenty of contributing factors to Daniel Day-Lewis’ motivation to make “Anemone” his cinematic return that mirror his own complexities of the industry with Ray’s own grappling of the past, but the most glaringly evident aspect of those feels like the sentimentality to work alongside his real-life son, who is directing his feature length debut. Like his prestigious father, there’s plenty here to believe that Ronan will seamlessly follow in the steps of such an imposing figure, particularly in the masterfully captivating ways that he enacts such a spellbinding entrancement over the audience, while featuring some of the single best scenic shots and contextualized tangibility with various set pieces that I have experienced this year. What’s obvious is how Ronan articulates the ingredients of the environment to casually convey the emotional and isolated distance that these brothers feel towards one another, with these coldly chilling and wide-angled photography capturing the kind of tangible essence that transfers seamlessly to the rising hairs on audience arms, all the while featuring these smoothly cerebral spanning motions during long takes that follow and study the characters firmly, even when dialogue is absent from the physicality of the interaction, and while Ronan with limitless possibilities in the expansive depths of the movie’s primary setting, which intentionally feels so far away from civilization, the imagery would be nothing without the allure of a guiding hand, proving him to be worthy of future work as a visually stimulating storyteller. On top of this, the film will prove to be an admittedly arduous task for audiences requiring more than just touchingly tender interaction between its budding siblings, but I found the depths of the conversations to cleverly convey exposition in ways that never felt on-the-nose obvious or heavily-intentioned within the dynamics of the various scenes, instead opting for the emotive responses to churn reality in the minds of the audience to effectively figure realities out for themselves. This is obviously most prominent during the initial ice-breaking tension of the brothers re-connecting with one another, involving responses to convey a bigger picture than what is being approached in the lack of transparency with the dialogue, but even when the film occasionally shifts to secondary characters such as Morton’s Nessa interacting with her on-screen son, Brian (Played by Samuel Bottomley), there’s a tender trepidation that outlines the haunting essence of what each of these characters regretfully feel towards reluctantly digging up the past once more, in turn driving the speculation factors of previous events, in order to illustrate it as the unmovable heft that lingers unrelentingly in these people who are ultimately and unfortunately defined by them. Likewise, Ronan gets a lot of help from the unblemished talents of his gifted ensemble, particularly from his father, who emphatically proves that he hasn’t missed a single step from grasping an audience in the palm of his hand, with meticulously measured intensity and unblinking persistence that makes love to the camera in the most commanding ways. While there’s plenty of reasons to believe that Ray is both a victim and an enabler to the moments of his life that Daniel articulates so hauntingly, earnest empathy is appraised in the gruesome vividness that he attacks so voraciously, and while the three-time Best Actor winner has a career of game-changing performances, his work here feels intimately endearing in the ways he is asked to constantly open a window to his character’s soul, ensuring what I undoubtedly believe will be another Oscar nomination, in the very least. Daniel doesn’t have to do all of the heavy lifting alone, however, as Bean and Morton both conjure a disquieting cadence to their respective turns that makes it feel like time has essentially stopped for both of these characters, with a firm balance between Jem’s undeterred commitment as the strong and silent type towards constantly communicating with his brother, but also Nessa’s sedation towards distraction that brandish such a frail vulnerability to her character’s appeal, enacting a captivating believability to real life people that feels grounded in reality and psychological heft.

NEGATIVES

Unfortunately, even in a movie featuring some of the year’s best imagery and decorated performances, “Anemone” is still an arduous task of agonies, thanks to the tediously paced execution that nearly plunges it, leading to one of my most conflicting final grades that I have had in recent memory. On the surface, I’m not somebody who is alienated by deliberately slow-paced films, especially if the movie artistically gives me something to grasp onto, but the destination never fully feels like it justifies the extent of the journey, especially in so much negative wallowing and unevolved storytelling that grows repetitively grating, the longer the film persists, and while I was effortlessly enamored by the interactions between two scene-stealers like Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Bean, it’s rarely matched with any kind of generated momentum or influence to make the two hour runtime transition with any semblance of urgency, especially during an inferior second half leading to an ending that opts for metaphorically supernatural during its most climactic of moments. While I completely understand the intention of the imagery that Ronan is supplanting towards magnetizing the undeterred link of eternal connection between Father and Son, it feels too bizarrely strange and sensorial for a scene demanding sentimentality, and in turn undercuts the underlining emphasis of impact behind those most defining moments meant to send audiences home satisfied. Also undercutting is the constant deviation between the arcs of Jem and Ray, and Nessa and Brian, with the latter sucking some of the noticeable momentum from the persistence of the storytelling, with each passing transition, evading some of the thoroughly illustrated isolation factors of the established setting that the movie’s production takes ample time fleshing out. While it’s nice to see the victims and responses from Ray’s selfish actions, the amount is my bigger problem here, repeating so many of the sluggish scenes in ways that feels like intentionally padding towards the aforementioned runtime, and it makes me wish the movie maintained the air of authenticity within its brotherly dynamic gimmick, in order to flesh out an inescapable captivity to Ray’s everyday isolated life. On top of the pacing and the unfulfilling choices with the ending, there is a bit of an unavoidable language barrier with the production’s sound design, where these thick Irish accents of the ensemble obscure the clarity of meaningful dialogue conveying what little exposition that the movie enacts for itself. For an at-home watch, this will prove much easier, as subtitles will help decipher the kind of slang and lingo that marred even emotionally somber interactions, however even for a theatrical engagement, featuring cutting edge sound quality to the auditorium, I still found myself struggling to grasp the consistencies of European deliveries, especially with a majority of the performances coming under the kind of relaxed emotionality that already makes so many of their indecipherable words sluggishly conflicting in the annunciating department.

OVERALL
“Anemone” is a stunningly scenic and sentimentally raw feature length directorial debut for Ronan Day-Lewis, who at least sets an isolated stage of inevitability towards brotherly confrontation, even if the sluggish storytelling and overly-indulgent runtime leave audiences emotionally vapid in the extent of its unengaging journey. While the film is exceptionally acted all around, especially in the thunderously triumphant return from Daniel Day-Lewis, the film’s climax eventually comes to sacrifice the magnitude of its sobering emotionality for metaphorical surrealism that distracts and detracts away from the humanity of the intent in messaging, in turn cementing an inconsistently conflicting engagement that articulates the most alienating aspects of art house cinema.

My Grade: 6.2 or C-