{"id":93106,"date":"2025-09-29T18:18:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T18:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/93106\/"},"modified":"2025-09-29T18:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T18:18:08","slug":"the-worst-he-ever-will-make","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/93106\/","title":{"rendered":"The worst he ever will make"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Day-Lewis\u2019<\/a> return to acting in drama Anemone has divided critics following its premiere at the New York Film Festival on Sunday (September 28).<\/p>\n

Directed by the actor\u2019s son, Ronan, the film stars Sean Bean<\/a> as a man who travels into Northern England\u2019s woods to reconnect with his estranged brother (Day-Lewis), who lives as a hermit. The multi-time Oscar<\/a> winner was last seen in Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s<\/a> drama Phantom Thread in 2017, after which he announced he would retire, citing \u201csadness\u201d as the reason for stepping away.<\/a><\/p>\n

However, he reversed his decision in order to star in the new film, which the actor revealed was motivated by the desire to work with his son. \u201cI thought, \u2018Wouldn\u2019t it be lovely if we could do something together and find a way of maybe containing it, so that it didn\u2019t necessarily have to be something that required all the paraphernalia of a big production?\u2019\u201d he told Rolling Stone earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, critics seem divided over whether the decision to return was a good idea.
In a two-star review for The Guardian<\/a>, Adrian Horton called the film \u201ca bleak and painfully serious misfire.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s gray-skies-only for the film\u2019s plodding two hours\u201d she continued regarding the film\u2019s tone, later adding: \u201cIt\u2019s a bleak mood, at times effective \u2013 I occasionally found myself aching for a hug \u2013 and more often alienating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Variety\u2019s<\/a> Owen Gleiberman wrote: \u201cI think it\u2019s touching that Daniel Day-Lewis came out of retirement to launch his son\u2019s movie career. That\u2019s a dad for you! And I have no problem with the nepo babyness of it all. But Anemone is still a dud of a movie \u2014 aridly pretentious and static, with too much self-conscious art photography and gloomsday indie rock and not enough drama.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the harshest verdict\u2019s came from the San Francisco Chronicle\u2019s<\/a> Mick LaSalle, who called the film \u201ca movie that dares audiences to notice how awful it is, disguising its pristine ineptitude and triviality behind a fa\u00e7ade of art film seriousness. The goal, it seems, was to make audiences believe there\u2019s nothing wrong with the movie but something wrong with them.\u201d He concluded that the film was \u201cthe worst film Daniel Day-Lewis ever made and the worst he ever will make, unless he and his son are planning a sequel.\u201d<\/p>\n

A warmer response came from The Telegraph\u2019s<\/a> Robbie Collin who, in a four-star review, wrote: \u201cIts two central performances pair perfectly. Bean is subtle, reactive, intuitive, funny, while Day-Lewis is every bit the marvel you remember: every gesture, every glance, every twinkle comes freighted with wiry intention.\u201d<\/p>\n

IndieWire\u2019s <\/a>Ryan Lattanzio also remarked: \u201cThat a movie like Anemone could only have been made by the forces of nepotism that govern it is not something to ignore, but this dark, dense, deep two-hander about the Troubles in Ireland turns out to be quite better than you\u2019d expect from that notion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anemone is released in UK cinemas on November 7.<\/p>\n

Recently, Daniel Day-Lewis discussed his original reasons for retiring from acting, saying he felt \u201chollowed out\u201d by the film industry.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Day-Lewis\u2019 return to acting in drama Anemone has divided critics following its premiere at the New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,117,19,17,7012],"class_list":{"0":"post-93106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-oscars"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}