The master is back: Daniel Day-Lewis makes his highly anticipated return to the screen in the newly released trailer for Anemone. Premiering at the New York Film Festival before opening in theaters on October 3, the drama was co-written by the actor (who has been “retired” since 2017) and his son Ronan Day-Lewis, who also directed the film. The personal nature of the film seems to be reflected in the plot, which “explores the complex and profound ties that exist between brothers, fathers, and sons.”
According to an official description of Anemone (via Variety), “the Northern England–set film begins as a middle-aged man (Sean Bean) sets out from his suburban home on a journey into the woods, where he reconnects with his estranged hermit brother (Day-Lewis). Bonded by a mysterious, complicated past, the men share a fraught, if occasionally tender relationship—one that was forever altered by shattering events decades earlier.”
The content of Anemone appears personal on another level for the star, who holds both British and Irish citizenship. The trailer introduces Day-Lewis’ character as a veteran of the English army who seems to have been stationed in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. “Ray never spoke to me about what happened over there,” his estranged wife (Samantha Morton) says. Ray, meanwhile, has been in self-imposed exile, appearing to struggle with PTSD from whatever he experienced in combat. “The army teaches you to grin and bear it,” he says. “The war was the crime, and we were the phantom soldiers.”
Day-Lewis has explored the Troubles in film before, particularly in his collaborations with Jim Sheridan: 1993’s In The Name Of The Father, for which he was Oscar-nominated, and 1997’s The Boxer, for which he was Golden Globe-nominated. Reflecting on The Boxer in 1998, he told the Herald-Times, “This film is about ordinary people and how their daily lives are affected—ruined, really — by violence and conflict. This isn’t war on the grand scale. It’s war in the details. What we’re showing, hopefully, is what it’s like to live amidst such violence.” In an observation that may be quite relevant to Anemone, made almost 30 years later, Day-Lewis said, “We tried to show what it’s like to live with war, and we tried to show the irony of seeking peace through violence.”
