Anemone: The Tentacular Blockbuster Uniting the World in Mild Disgust

The planet’s newest cinematic Rorschach test, Anemone, has slithered onto 4,000 screens from Reykjavik to Reykjavik-adjacent, and the international consensus is already as murky as a Shanghai Tuesday. You would think a film about a carnivorous sea polyp with unresolved mommy issues wouldn’t travel well, yet here we are: subtitles in 27 languages, a TikTok dance challenge in Jakarta that looks suspiciously like anaphylactic shock, and a French critical establishment arguing whether the protagonist’s tentacles are a metaphor for late-stage capitalism or simply a very confident hairstyle.

Anemone, directed by the mononymous “Søl” (a Scandinavian who claims to have been raised by jellyfish and tax attorneys), is nominally set on the storm-battered coast of Svalbard. In practice it’s filmed anywhere with a generous film-rebate and lax labor laws: half the “Arctic” exteriors were shot in Malta, which explains why the icebergs occasionally melt into suspiciously turquoise water and the extras keep crossing themselves. The plot—if you insist on calling it that—follows Mara, a marine biologist who discovers that the local anemones have developed both sentience and a taste for Tinder dates. By the third act, Mara is negotiating a cease-fire between humanity and a species that communicates exclusively through interpretive sting.

Global audiences have responded with the kind of polite horror normally reserved for IMF loan conditions. In Seoul, viewers staged a “silent clap” protest, arguing that the film’s sound design is itself an act of aggression. In Argentina, the Peronist youth wing praised the anemones’ collectivist lifestyle, then tried to nationalize popcorn prices. Meanwhile, the Swiss have filed a formal complaint claiming the movie violates their long-standing neutrality by making them feel something.

The broader significance is, as always, economic. Anemone is the first major co-production under the new Trans-Polar Content Corridor, a trade pact that lets streaming giants dodge tariffs by pretending their servers are actually ice floes. The treaty was signed last winter during a summit held, with impeccable symbolism, on a melting glacier. Critics note the accord allows studios to hire actors at “local” rates pegged to whichever country has the most depressed currency that morning. As a result, Mara is played by a Lithuanian cellist moonlighting for exposure and a sandwich, while the anemones are portrayed by laid-off Cirque du Soleil performers grateful for the dental plan.

Environmental groups have tried, bless them, to hijack the film’s press tour. Greenpeace activists in scuba gear unfurled a banner at the Venice premiere reading “PLASTIC IS THE REAL MONSTER,” only to realize the banner was itself plastic and immediately sank. Søl responded by releasing a statement in which he claimed the entire production was carbon-negative because he personally apologized to every krill. The EU is investigating; the krill are unavailable for comment.

Culturally, Anemone has become the latest litmus test of how numb we’ve become. A scene in which Mara kisses her own reflection while anemones caress her ankles has already been GIF-ed into oblivion, captioned “mood” by teenagers who have never seen the ocean. In Lagos, bootleg DVDs come with a free pamphlet: “How to weaponize sea anemones against your landlord.” And in the United States, the film’s NC-17 rating has sparked bipartisan outrage—Democrats complain it stigmatizes consensual interspecies romance, Republicans that it doesn’t show enough guns.

So should you watch Anemone? If you enjoy two hours of tentacular psychotherapy set to whale-metal, absolutely. If not, simply wait: the inevitable sequel has already been green-lit, shot, and focus-grouped in a single afternoon by an algorithm that determined the optimal number of emotional stings per minute. Either way, resistance is futile; like rising seas and influencer skincare, the anemones are coming for us all. Just remember to tip your Lithuanian cellist on the way out—she’s still waiting for that sandwich.