Anemone | Full Movie | Movies Anywhere

The drama, cowritten with and directed by the star’s son, Ronan Day-Lewis, also finds in Bean the perfect foil: strong, largely silent and watchful. Their fraternal duet is a thing of cinematic beauty in a movie that leans into the rough edges.

The burden of expectations is preposterous. Yet the best way to deal with them is to prove yourself worthy. Mr. Day-Lewis has emphatically done so, with a strikingly self-confident and gravely realized first feature, “Anemone.”

The story is seriously stagnated, and even one of the world's best living actors can't dig it out of its arthouse pretensions or narrative doldrums.

Anemone serves as a great re-introduction to perhaps the finest actor of our time, but even if that’s good enough to get Daniel Day-Lewis yet another Oscar nomination, it doesn’t make for a memorable film overall.

“Anemone” is overwhelming in its presence, unmistakable in its promise, and marks Ronan Day-Lewis as a filmmaker unafraid to wade into subjects—violence, faith, masculinity, and generational scars—that continue to shape and scar.