The Promise
DVD
Review by Kam Williams
Oscar
Isaac and Christian Bale Co-Star in WWI Docudrama
It's
Eastern Turkey in 1914, which is where we find druggist Mikael
Boghosian (Oscar Isaac) plying his trade in his
half-Armenian/half-Turkish village where Christians and Muslims get
along swell. The ambitious, young apothecary would really rather be a
doctor, so he strategically courts a neighbor (Angela Sarafyan) from
a relatively-wealthy family just for the dowry.
Those
400 gold coins do enable him to afford med school. However, while
studying in Constantinople, he falls head-over-heels for Ana
(Charlotte Le Bon), a fellow Armenian recently
repatriated from France. The country bumpkin is taken not only with
her pulchritude but with her urbane sophistication ostensibly
cultivated over the course of a childhood spent in Paris.
Trouble is,
Ana has returned accompanied by her lover, Chris Meyers (Christian
Bale), an intrepid, American photojournalist assigned by the
Associated Press to find evidence of ethnic cleansing.
For both of these films chronicle extraordinary exhibitions of heroism in the face of a complete collapse of civilization. If this picture has a flaw, it's that it appears to be trivializing the ethnic cleansing of one and a half million Armenians when it asks that holocaust to serve as a mere backdrop to the love story at the center of the saga.
That being said, I nevertheless invested in the characters emotionally, and ended up teary-eyed during the denouement. War may be hell, but luckily, love still conquers all!
Excellent (3.5 stars)
Rated PG-13 for mature themes, sexuality, violence, disturbing images and war atrocities
Running time: 134 minutes
Production Studio: Survival Pictures
Distributor: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack Extras: Deleted scenes; The Love Story; War and Struggle; A Cause; and feature commentary with director Terry George and producer Eric Esrailian.
To see a trailer for The Promise, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwut1DUXaZc
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