Promise, The (2016)

Synopsis: In the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, an Armenian apothecary. Mikael Boghosian (Oscar Isaac), travels to Constantinople to train as a doctor. There, he falls in love with Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), a French-educated Armenian artist who is in a relationship with dedicated American reporter, Chris Myers (Christian Bale). But WWI breaks out and the Turkish authorities use the occasion to rid themselves of all Armenians living within their borders and the three find themselves fighting for their lives.

The Promise is a strange film. In its more contemporary aspect it appears to aspire to the ranks of The English Patient (1999) and Out Of Africa (1985) as a grand romance with star-crossed love playing out against the backdrop of history.  In its rather more anachronistic tendency it owes much to the tradition of epic historical yarns such as The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) or The Ten Commandments (1956), with their portrayal of an oppressed minority struggling to survive their oppressors.  Here it is the Armenians against the Turks but thematically speaking it could be the Israelites against the Egyptians, Christians against the Romans, or for that matter, the Jews against the Nazis. This is not a problem as such but what is is co-writer/director Terry George’s generic treatment of the material.

This is somewhat surprising as George wrote the screenplays for Jim Sheridan’s confrontational films about Ireland’s Troubles, In the Name of the Father and The Boxer (both 1993) and wrote and directed Hotel Rwanda about the Rwandan genocide. His subject matter here has the same degree of historical reality but his script saddles it with familiar adventure yarn plot devices -  miraculous escapes, selfless heroics, protagonists whose paths keep conveniently crossing and so on  - and  stereotypical characters whilst his direction is routine and too often sentimentalizing.  Hence the feeling that we are watching some strange throwback to the 1960s. Gabriel Yared’s over-rich orchestral score only emphasizes this feeling. So tired are we by the hackneyed telling that when, late in the piece, Jean Reno appears briefly as a French naval officer it is almost an occasion for laughter.

There was potential in the romance side of things but it struggles to hold its own against the tide of events and never generates any real passion, which certainly given the triangular nature of the relationship is a major disappointment. Although Isaac, Le Bon and Bale never connect substantially individually I enjoyed Bale’s fairly limited performance.

As a recreation of a time and place, The Promise is quite stunning and clearly a lot of money has been spent getting things just right. The film also deserves credit for bringing to light yet another instance of man’s inhumanity, the genocide of some 1.5 million Armenians by the Turks (something which the Turkish government still refuses to acknowledge).  This evident aim it has achieved well. It’s just a pity that it didn't do so with more narrative focus and filmic imagination.

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