Ein Versprechen

The novel was exceptional and the love story devastatingly sad, but the film had so little chemistry between Rebecca Hall and Richard Madden that I felt nothing. Really didn't care about them at all. Not one bit. Nada.

Alan Rickman was extraordinary as usual (and so weird watching this film knowing this was one of his last films), but even he couldn't save this movie.

I've always been a big fan of Patrice Leconte, especially Man on a Train, a film that had a quiet haunting beauty about it. If only he had been able to suffuse A Promise with that same emotional weight.

I watched "A Promise" by accident - totally unprepared, and not even knowing what I was about to watch. But the fact that I watched it to the end already says a lot, since the film is not your typical shoot-them-up-superhero type of entertainment.

A Promise is essentially a love story set in times just before the WWI. It moves at its own, unhurried pace, but gives us plenty to observe and enjoy. While thoughtful, it manages to create suspense and drama without ever becoming sappy or boring. The story is inspiring, and screenplay well written. Besides great photography, and great story, all the actors were marvelous.

It is rare for me to be impressed by a film a day after I watched it, but A Promise achieved exactly that. It is refined, honest and deep enough to keep one engaged and only the most jaded will be unimpressed. Maybe there was a thing or two I would've done differently, but even with those imperfections, it stands out as an enviable work of seventh art.

Obviously, if you were looking for Ironman 12, or Halloween 13, you came to the wrong place.

The only sensible character here was Richard Madden's character. The rest were weird to watch.

And why did the camera zoom in on the characters out of the blue?...

3 stars for the outfits really.

It's a good movie. There's the desire and the betrayal in a certain way, but there's no action, no passion and it continues till the end of the film. It could have been better.

Maybe I'm being charitable here, but I felt the "lack of chemistry" between the leads that so many criticise here could have been intentional, a trope for repressed emotion or the etiquette of the time. Yes, there are some major flaws, some clunking (such as the keyboard-sniffing, rat capture and of course, the damp squib of an ending), but there's also a lot to enjoy, particularly if you are a Rickman fan. But yes, some more historical context would have been good, it feels like an afterthought, and perhaps a deeper examination of whether the affair was set up from the start by an impotent husband.