Writers: Ronan Day-Lewis and Daniel Day-Lewis
Director: Ronan Day-Lewis
In film, anyone choosing to cut themselves off from everyday life and live alone in the woods is definitely concealing a troubled past, something that will emerge in resolutory form during the story. Ronan Day-Lewis has tempted his father back to the screen to co-write and star as Ray a man with a couple of enormous secrets which emerge when his brother Jem arrives one day to ask for his help. Refreshingly in Anemone, screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2025, Ray refuses to accept any victimhood for the things that have happened to him and rejects a misplaced sense of pity in his sibling in a stimulating two hander about the consequences of faith and war.
Brothers Ray and Jem both served in Northern Ireland in the 1980s and carry the scars of aggressive warfare. Abandoning his pregnant girlfriend, Ray now lives a small but peaceful life in the woods with no other contact, but who has, by this time, an adult son who also faces a dilemma as a soldier. Jem journeys to Ray’s shack to convince him to meet the boy and help him and across several days together, Ray finally reveals the choices he made.
The Day-Lewis’ film has two separate trajectories, one the conversation between the brothers filled with silence and resentment, and the other involving mother and son back in town where they live. The brothers are by far the most engaging and convincing with two powerhouse performances from Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Bean who glare at each other watchfully, manoeuvre around someone who knows them too well and wait patiently for the ice to crack just enough. A case in point, they do not even speak to each other for some time after Jem arrives, Ray spotting him and making a cup of tea before his brother has even walked through the door, with no words needed.
And it takes almost the entirety of the 2-hour running time for their angst to resolve itself. Ray offers up his first secret with a tale of revenge that shocks his Christian brother, and while it feels entirely credible in Day-Lewis’ performance, he asks ambiguously “did you believe that story” while never confirming if it was true. Later the connection to Northern Ireland is revealed with a monologue told in close-up about the event that ended his army career and left him to a life in the trees, asking some quite meaningful questions about soldierly behaviours in warlike situations and the very great difference between protocol and mercy on the ground. Bean too is excellent, yielding little himself and struggling to accept some of the things his brother tells him but the stillness of his performance, Jem allowing his brother to slowly draw towards him is expertly played.
The second strand is almost entirely redundant when so much is conveyed by the leads. Samantha Morton and Samuel Bottomley are great but their material is weak in comparison, too full of absolutes but without enough agency and flesh of their own. Their story only there to reinforce Jem’s purpose. As director Ronan Day-Lewis has a great eye for the beauty and savagery of nature occurring at the same time with stunning sunsets on wind-swept beaches or lush green forests battered by hail but it all becomes a bit overly obvious as a metaphor and the wider film never quite matches the intensity of Bean and Daniel Day-Lewis’ conversation about the complexities of human nature and the darkness within even the kindest deed.
Anemone is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2025 from 8-19 October.
