From a painter and filmmaker to the son of well-known creatives, if there’s one thing that first-time director Ronan Day-Lewis has plenty of, it’s titles. And if there’s one thing that they all reveal, it’s that he can make an exceptionally detailed – and perhaps overly enigmatic – piece of cinema.

Coming from a long line of creatives — his grandfather is the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman, The Crucible); his mother is the director Rebecca Miller (Angela, Personal Velocity: Three Portraits), and his father is the Oscar-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood, Lincoln, and Phantom Thread) — Ronan Day-Lewis has always been surrounded by and immersed in art and innovative expression. Yet, rather than leveraging his family’s influence to his advantage — as the charge of nepotism so often suggests — Ronan first made his mark as a painter, and has since become an emerging filmmaker with a distinctly personal voice.

As the first-time director has demonstrated through several exhibitions showcasing his work across the globe, artists often have the painstaking task of engaging both the mind and the bodily senses with just an image; and, as even the most deceptively simplistic shots in his debut feature film Anemone possess the ability to evoke emotions and transcend the screen, it’s clear that Ronan’s refined artistic technique and work ethic prove invaluable in his newfound medium. 

Having directed a previous short titled The Sheep and the Wolf (2018), which touches upon the theme of relationships across generations, Ronan is no stranger to exploring psychologically weighty themes—a focus he deepens in the more complex and thematically resonant Anemone.

Taking a look at the driving and dividing forces that steer male relationships and expressions of masculinity, Anemone move deftly between two brothers isolated in the Northern English woods, Ray Stoker (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Jem Stoker (Sean Bean), and their family back in the city: Ray’s ex-wife Nessa (Samantha Morton) and son Brian (Samuel Bottomley). One half of each pair sinks deeper into quiet desperation, while the other struggles to help them alter course.

For a film that bears a lot of ‘firsts’ for its creative team, the absence of prior cinematic experience in Anemone doesn’t make itself known. In fact, after an eight-year-hiatus from acting, the elder Day-Lewis’s return marks not only a new credit as a performer, but also his first time as a screenwriter. Having previously confessed his personal axiom of only being able to take on roles when the scripts are too good to turn down, the expectation is that Anemone was worthy of Day-Lewis’ return—even if he was partially responsible for its script.

From the first sequence of the film — a multiple-minute panoramic shot of a child’s drawing accompanied by loud screeching and heart-pumping music — it's clear that Anemone is comfortable with experimentation. With little to no dialogue within the first thirty minutes, audiences are drawn into the cinematic landscape through meticulously crafted shots that speak to the ways in which we connect when there are no words to be found. Both a selling point and somewhat of a hindrance, Anemone’s plot is not driven by dialogue, but rather enriched and articulated through means that lie beyond traditional communication.

Reuniting after more than two decades apart, through simple scenes where the characters drink, dance, swim, and forage for food, a direct line of communication gradually emerges between brothers Ray and Jem as they reconnect over years of unresolved and unexplored trauma and shared abuse. Paralleling our inherently patriarchal society which often prescribes masculinity as having little to no place for emotional vulnerability, Ronan’s choices encapsulate the troubles that men today face when seeking meaningful male companionship. However, piecing together this narrative presents an interesting game of Tetris for the viewer.

Where most scenes within Anemone are reflective of Ronan’s experience as a painter and the painstaking detail that comes with it, some shots feel out of place. Certain static moments of nature taking its course weave their way into the sequences, often multiple minutes long and so loud you can’t hear yourself think, they run the risk of overwhelming the senses and distracting from the already repressed plot.

Nevertheless, with the aid of simpler scenes and deeply reflective and wrenching monologues, the film’s narrative is driven home by Daniel’s unparalleled delivery as an ex-British soldier living with PTSD. Whether it’s only a byproduct of his transfixing performance, a reflection of the father-son duo’s ability to work seamlessly together, or Ronan’s newfound directorial aptitude, these moments yield an abundant feast for the eyes.

Where some might consider the film an unorthodox directorial debut, because of the substantial role that the larger-than-life Day-Lewis Sr. plays in its creation, it is ultimately Ronan’s own virtuosic knowledge of both the moving and still image that brings the cinematic piece to life. Though the father-son duo definitely delivers, Ronan’s artistically independent filmmaking-eye remains only partially revealed—but after this hauntingly picturesque debut, it’s certainly one audiences will want to see more of.