‘The Promise’ Trailer: Oscar Isaac, Christian Bale, A Love Triangle, And The Armenian Genocide
I can’t tell if the core premise ofThe Promiseis glibly offensive or admirably old school in a Hollywood Golden Age kind of way. Here’s a sweeping, epic romance starringOscar IsaacandChristian Bale, two of the most recognizable actors on the planet…that happens to be set against the backdrop of the Armenian genocide, which saw the brutal deaths of 1.5 million men, women, and children at the hands of Ottoman government in 1915. Thatcouldwork – movies like Titanic prove that historical tragedy and Hollywood romance can blend under the right circumstances – but the success ofThe Promiseis going to come down to how directorTerry Georgeexecutes this tricky balance.
And The Promise Trailer is here for us to judge.
The Promisefollows an Armenian medical student (Isaac) and an American journalist (Bale) who both fall in love with an artist (Charlotte le Bon) while living in Constantinople, only to find their love triangle upended when the government begins deporting, and soon mass-murdering, the Armenian population of Turkey. It’s heavy stuff, but George has a history of taking difficult material and transforming it into accessible, Oscar-friendly stories. After all, he directedHotel Rwanda. Whether that feels like a promise or a threat probably depends on how you view that particular movie.
The Promise Trailer
To be perfectly honest, this trailer doesn’t do much for me. It looks like cookie cutter Oscar bait like someone grabbed a template for turning heads during awards season and wrote “Armenian Holocaust” in one of the blanks. The film could be good (reviews out the Toronto International Film Festival have been mixed so far), but the footage in this preview looks like something we’ve seen before, presented in an all-too-familiar fashion.
The Promisedoesn’t have a release date yet, but you can probably expect it to arrive in theaters before the year is out so it can qualify for golden statues and such. Here’s the official synopsis:
