The Promise
In the mountain villages of Turkey, Mikael Boghosian (Oscar Isaac: X-Men: Apocalypse) is an apothecary with dreams of earning a medical degree. Financing his studies with the dowry from an arranged marriage, he promises to return to his fiancée in two years as a doctor.
In Constantinople, he lives with his uncle, a wealthy merchant. The life of luxury and the family nanny, Ana (Charlotte Le Bon: Realive) distract him from his classes. Beautiful, free spirited and worldly, Ana is everything Mikael’s fiancée is not. He falls in love but keeps silent because he is honor-bound to marry another.
Ana, meanwhile, is enjoying an affair with brash American A.P. reporter Chris Meyers (Christian Bale: The Big Short), who anticipates Turkish government will seek to rid the country of its Armenian population.
As the nationalist movement takes root, Mikael is forced into a work camp where he is starved, beaten and stripped of hope.
A movie about a genocide still unacknowledged by the Turkish government, The Promise had promise. Instead of exposing the consequences of xenophobia, Director Terry George (Standoff) settled for an Armenian retelling of Doctor Zhivago.
Miscalculating the appeal of this tiresome romance, he treats us to shot after shot of pretty people pining for other pretty people.
The male leads, both proven actors, are wasted. The movie soars when their characters discover what the Turks are doing. Devastated by what’s been done to his people, Isaac’s Boghosian plays for heart. Bale’s Meyers is the righteous crusader, fighting to find proof of the war crimes and alert the world.
Unfortunately, the important story plays background to one of the more tedious romantic triangles in cinema history.
Fair Drama • PG-13 • 132 mins.