“The Promise” tells story rarely known outside history classes: Highsnobiety

PanARMENIAN.Net - Highsnobiety writer Jake Boyer published a review of the movie “The Promise” praising Christian Bale for his full-on action mode in the film.

The film synopsis on reads: “Michael, a humble Armenian apothecary, leaves his village to study medicine in cosmopolitan Constantinople. Chris, an American photojournalist who has come to the country to partly cover the geopolitics, is in a relationship with the talented Ana, a Paris-educated Armenian artist. When Michael meets Ana, their shared heritage sparks an attraction that explodes into a romantic rivalry between the two men. After the Turks join the war on the German side, the Ottoman Empire turns violently against its own ethnic minorities. Despite their conflicts, everyone must find a way to survive — even as monumental events envelope their lives.”

The film is set against the backdrop of the Armenian Genocide.

“It feels like it has been a solid hot minute since we’ve seen Christian Bale in full-on action mode. Of late, the most notable appearances from the actor have been his turn as a sleazy, overweight fortune hunter in American Hustle, as a man walking around empty hallways making out with people in Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups, and as a wacky financial analyst in the Oscar-charmer The Big Short,” Boyer says.

“But it seems like we’re getting a long overdue taste of Bale in smashing-heads-rescuing-people-hero-mode with “The Promise,” a film that just debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. Though we’re not seeing him in a way we’ve ever seen him before.

“‘The Promise’ is an epic historical drama in the vein of old-school classics like “Doctor Zhivago,” and though it set during the hectic landscape of Europe in WWI, it tells a story that is rarely known outside the most hardcore history classes. Oscar Isaac headlines the cast as a young medical student who travels to Constantinople just in time to witness the Ottoman Empire’s systematic genocide of the Armenian population, one of the many atrocities committed in this theater of war. Bale stars as Christopher Myers, an American reporter who gets caught in a love triangle with Isaac and his Armenian fiancée, thus ensuring drama on a personal and grand scale. As the saying goes, shit gets real.”