The Armenian Genocide is a curiously unexplored moment in our modern history, cinematically speaking. That fact alone makes director and co-writer Terry George’s “The Promise” intriguing enough. Historical fiction generally has it over documentaries in inspiring mass interest, especially when actors as appealing as Oscar Isaac, Christian Bale and Charlotte Le Bon are involved.
And indeed, “The Promise” is a sprawling and handsome epic set around the extermination of 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey. But despite the best of intentions, the film fails to properly explain and contextualize both what led to that disgraceful episode, which Turkey to this day denies, and why it escalated as it did. Instead, “The Promise” chooses to focus in on an unsympathetic love triangle that manages to trivialize the film overall.
The goal, as always, is to personalize the events that are too big and too devastating to look at as a whole — to make it about the lives interrupted, cut short and thrown into turmoil because of external forces. Thus we’re given the character Michael Boghosian (Isaac), an Armenian medical student from a small village in Southern Turkey who uses his fiancee’s dowry to study modern medicine in Constantinople. Michael isn’t in love with his fiancee (Angela Sarafyan), but such is life in Siroun where marriages are arranged and he doesn’t have any other choice. He kisses her goodbye and heads off to the big city, promising to return in just a few years.
Constantinople is an oasis of temptation for Michael, who essentially falls for the first woman he sees. The beguiling Ana (Le Bon) is a cosmopolitan beauty and intellectual. She lived in Paris for years. She exudes ethereal confidence. And she’s an Armenian from around his hometown. Ana also happens to be in a long-term relationship with Chris Myers (Bale), an Associated Press reporter who we’re told drinks too much.