Pity nepo parent Daniel Day-Lewis. Is he just another dad who can't say no?

What happens when the nepo debate inconveniently attaches itself to someone whose work you respect? There's excitement about triple Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis returning to acting to star in the film Anemone.

- Barbara Ellen

It will be the first time since the actor retired in 2017 after Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread (he also retired in 1997 to train as a cobbler). Maybe the reason Day-Lewis is involved - also co-writing - is that Anemone is the directorial debut of his son, Ronan. There it parps, the nepo-klaxon, and it would be hypocritical to ignore it. It can’t be unbridled scorn for Brooklyn Beckham alone flexing the family name and a wave-through for others. I'm not dismissing Ronan, a Yale art graduate. I loved the 2009 film Moon, by David Bowie's son, Duncan Jones. Nevertheless, Ronan would have been unlikely to get this opportunity without his connections. A big “dad” move from Day-Lewis too: the instinct to help his child seemingly propelled him out of retirement.