The Promise
Set during the last days of the Ottoman Empire, The Promise follows a love triangle between Michael, a brilliant medical student, the beautiful and sophisticated Ana, and Chris - a renowned American journalist based in Paris.
7 October 1974, Kozoglu, Kelkit District, Turkey
1 January 1957, Ankara, Turkey
4 September 1986, Montréal, Québec, Canada
16 January 1983, The Hague, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands
5 July 1987, Toronto, Canada
27 January 1940, Los Angeles, California, USA
25 June 1958, Givatayim, Israel
2 June 1943, Turkey
4 September 1978, Kirovakan, Armenian SSR, USSR [now Vanadzor, Armenia]
June 15, 2017
The wonderfully charismatic central performance by Oscar Isaac grounds the action, bringing heart and even a little humour.
April 21, 2017
You have to swallow some inadequacies to get the most out of The Promise. It is appealingly photographed and boasts some stunning location work, yet it's also saddled with the tone of a biblical epic, invisibly watermarked with the label important.
April 21, 2017
Noble intentions can't disguise their epic failure: The love story fails to ignite.
June 14, 2017
Ultimately, The Promise is more admirable than enjoyable, but perhaps that was the intent.
June 21, 2017
Equal parts romantic period piece and pointed historical drama. It's also a film with emotional power to go with strong storytelling, sure to haunt the hearts and minds of those who watch it.
April 21, 2017
A sprawling, '60s-style epic with just enough political intrigue to prop up the occasionally wobbly romantic triangle formed by Oscar Isaac, Charlotte Le Bon, and an uncharacteristically ill-fitting Christian Bale.
April 21, 2017
The Promise is drenched in production value and replete with ravishing shots of sunrises and sunsets, but it's in the scenes of fleeing, of battle, and of horrendous loss that the film is at its most effective.
June 20, 2017
A couple of scenes depict the massacre directly, but there is an absence of the kind of detail that brings the scene to horrifying life.
June 14, 2017
The Promise is no Dr Zhivago. But it delivers handsomely.
April 21, 2017
Director Terry George delivers a scalding dramatization of the Ottoman Empire's 1915 genocidal annihilation of its Armenian citizens, and then dulls it with a soapy, invented love triangle.
June 14, 2017
As one might expect, the horrors and the normalisation of same are deftly handled, even when the dialogue is overloaded with historical and political details.
April 21, 2017
Despite its flaws, it's important that it was made.
