(l-r) Charlotte Le Bon as Ana, Oscar Isaac as Michael, and Christian Bale as Chris, in THE PROMISE. Photo by Jose Haro. Courtesy of Open Road ©
Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars
– By Cate Marquis –
The Armenian genocide during World War I is the backdrop for THE PROMISE, tale of war and love starring Oscar Isaac, Charlotte Le Bon and Christian Bale.
A hundred years on, many people still know little about this early 20th century genocide in the waning days of Turkey’s Ottoman Empire, an event the Turkish government still refuses to acknowledge. It has been said that the world has so thoroughly forgotten the Armenian genocide only a few years afterward, that it encouraged Hitler to undertake his own genocide. But some Armenians did survive and the genocide is getting renewed attention after a century.
In director Terry George’s lush historical drama, Oscar Isaac plays Michael, a young Armenian man, the son of the local pharmacist, from a small village who travels to Constantinople to fulfill his life-long ambition to attend medical school. His pharmacist father is respected but poor, and the son becomes engaged to the daughter of a wealthy villager, using the dowry to pay for his education. The young couple barely know each other but the young man is confident they will learn to love each other.
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