Editor’s Note: In what was a rather quick turnaround, I noticed a comment about the quality of my review. the irony of critiquing a critic, or the critic then not being able to accept said criticism is not lost on me. Someone came here expecting excellence, and I didn’t deliver. the only thing I can do is to take that feedback, and do better. I could list all the excuses and reasons that may have led to this, but they are all just excuses and reasons, which make my day or life harder, but the reader doesn’t care. I will say we live in a world increasingly acccepting of typos and spelling errors, wearing them as badges of pride that they are not artificial intelligence, so my reader might be losing that battle somewhat, in an effort to seem extraordinarily more human. But I can’t afford that as the only blind film critic on Rotten tomatoes. I left the errors. They were there when I published them, and changing and brushing up the piece to make the man in the comments look crazy isn’t my plan, nor would be to delete the comment. I rely on a lot of things that aren’t human reading things back to me in synthetic voice, and I truly didn’t hear the N/M swap. I didn’t spell the name of the film correctly, because I couldn’t distinguish between N and M. But, this synthetic voice problem is a lot of what I’m here to talk about most of the time regarding the quality of audio description when the humans are removed from the picture, and artificial intelligence runs the play. So, thanks for coming and checking out what is apparently an awful review of Anemone. I learned how to spell it. This is the only new paragraph, and what follows was left exactly as it was posted. All I’ve got, is that I’m sorry.

Write what you know. After having seen this, I’m not sure ronan Day Lewis actually did that, or he’s been through a lot we don’t give him credit for. technically the script is co-written with his father, who also stars here, but the script is the biggest problem.Ronan Day-Lewis proves himself a more promising director than a writer, and I’ll tell you, but as there once was blood, there will be spoilers.

All anyone will ever remember this for is a bonkers monologue by Daniel Day Lewis in the first third of the film. At this point, we’ve been introduced to him as a social outcast, and his brother (Sean Bean) has travelled to find him because his son he left behind is in crisis. In a monologue sure to be repeated by acting students from here to eternity, Daniel talks about an encounter with an old priest. the film deals with the Catholic Church hiding the sexual abuse of young kids, and the monologue is this tense exploration of vengeance.

Daniel has three Oscars, and this man can read the phone book. He’s so good, he could probably star in a shot for shot remake of the Room, and get an Oscar nomination. But for this, he’s in the middle of holding the audience in a death grip of anticipation. What did he do to the priest? before we find out, Ronan Day Lewis, with his INFINITE WISDOM decides to explain the gag before it occurs, so you know how the monologue ends before it actually does. He walks it back to how Daniel ate shitty food and beer, took a bunch of laxatives, and waited for the right moment. Then, when he gets the priest on the floor, expecting something else, well…

He ruined the gag. The tension of the monologue is lost when you know where it goes, which for some reason, he says before he needs to. He could have still finished the monologue, had a good laugh, and then backed up to explain what he had intentionally left out, but he didn’t. He just chooses to shit the bed (pardon me) on this really big moment. to his credit, tarantino’s monologue with Christopher Walken in Pulp Fiction is much better.

Ronan’s writing also struggles to ever define the son character, keeping him almost like a shadow. I think that was a mistake, as is the nominal screentime for Samantha Morton. Had a better director stepped in at the last minute and offered Ronan Day Lewis some much needed guidance, we might be having serious conversations about another nomination for Daniel day Lewis, and the first for Sean Bean, who is quite good with what he’s given.

Sadly, there’s only just so much they can milk out of a weak script, which feels like it was written not by someone writing what they know, but instead interpreting a powerful subject matter from the films they’ve seen. I did watch this twice, once without audio description on a screener, and once on Peacock with audio description. the description did add quite a bit of clarity to certain scenes, since we often sit in silence. I thought the track was lovely, though I’m not sure who is responsible for it.

Anenome could have been remembered for being the bold return of Daniel Day Lewis, and introducing us to the next generation, but instead leaves the Day Lewis legacy possibly ending on a blemish.

Rotten: final Grade: 5.5/10