Most showbiz retirements deserve to be taken with a massive heaping of salt, but when “Anemone” star Daniel Day-Lewis announced he was as stepping away from acting after “Phantom Thread,” there was reason to give it more weight than your typical KISS farewell tour.
In addition to accomplishing everything there is to accomplish within the medium of film acting, including three Oscar wins and too many classic roles to count, it’s hard to think of an actor who sacrificed more for their craft. His intense approach to acting, in which he lived in character for months on end, took a toll on his mental health and personal life, and Day-Lewis insisted that he was content to retire to his quiet life in Europe and focus on his family and lifelong interest in trades like stonemasonry and shoemaking.
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It’s both ironic and fitting, then, that Day-Lewis’ return to acting came at the behest of his family. His new film “Anemone” is the directorial debut of his son Ronan Day-Lewis, who co-wrote the screenplay with his father. The supernatural drama explores the complicated bonds that family tends to create, with Day-Lewis and Sean Bean playing estranged brothers who reconnect in the woods of Northern England after a traumatic event severed their relationship a decade prior.
The film takes its title from the sea creature that shares a symbiotic relationship with the clownfish, famously depicted in “Finding Nemo.” The title appears to be a metaphor suggesting that we’re destined to return to our familial relationships as frequently as the clownfish swims back into the tentacles of an anemone.
In addition to Day-Lewis and Bean, “Anemone” stars Samantha Morton and Samuel Bottomley, with “Saint Maud” and “Love Lies Bleeding” cinematographer Ben Fordesman on the camera. The film will have its world premiere at the New York Film Festival before opening theatrically in October.
It remains to be seen whether Day-Lewis plans to do more acting or sees this as a one-off project, but there’s a cameo in “The Studio” Season 2 waiting for him if he wants it.
A Focus Features release, “Anemone” opens in select theaters on Friday, October 3 before expanding nationwide on October 10. Watch the trailer below.
