By Katie Walsh,
History is rife with horrific events that somehow manage to reveal true humanity and heroism. Many of these events are underreported, underrepresented and misunderstood, such as the Armenian genocide — the extermination of 1.5 million Armenians and other ethnic and religious minorities by the Ottoman Empire, starting in 1915.
Knowledge of this genocide isn’t universal, and Turkey, the successor nation of the Ottoman Empire, still refuses to acknowledge it. The epic melodrama “The Promise,” based on these events, seeks to remedy popular understanding of the horror. It’s a noble undertaking that only partially succeeds.
Written by Robin Swicord and director Terry George, “The Promise” has all the trappings of a romantic epic — movie stars, love triangles, exotic destinations. It boasts Oscar Isaac, Christian Bale and gorgeous European locations, plus experienced talent behind the camera, so it’s confounding then that “The Promise” falls so flat.
The film is a color-by-numbers wartime drama. Isaac plays Mikael, a young medical student from a small Armenian village, pursuing his fortune in Constantinople. There he befriends a young Turk (Marwan Kenzari) and an American reporter (Bale) and falls in love with a worldly and well-traveled Armenian woman, Ana (Charlotte Le Bon), though he’s promised to a young woman back home. When the Ottomans enter World War I, the group is torn apart by hatred, racism and violence.