SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains light spoilers for Anemone. If you have not yet seen the film and don’t want to know anything about it before doing so, proceed at your own risk!
It should surprise exactly nobody that Daniel Day-Lewis delivers one of the most earth-shaking performances of 2025 in Anemone – his return to the big screen after eight years of retirement – but I nonetheless found myself shaken by one particular monologue in the movie’s second act. Early in the reunion between Day-Lewis’ Ray and Jem (his brother played by Sean Bean), the former tells a story that is so tragic and disgusting that I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. It’s such a staggering emotional tightrope walk of a kind that I’ve rarely experienced, and I thus felt compelled to ask about it specifically later that week while interviewing the film’s co-writer/director.
Daniel Day-Lewis’ son) along with Sean Bean virtually during the recent press day for Anemone, and I told the pair how conflicted I was while watching the scene unfold. I asked about how the filmmaker went about crafting the immensely complex scene, and he explained that it was most definitely the intention to both make you chuckle and then feel horrible for doing so. He told me,
the film has gotten a mixed response, if you find reading about the monologue even moderately staggering, you’ll be blown away by Daniel Day-Lewis’ remarkable performance.