Review: "The Promise"

“The Promise” is a film of startling authority and ravishing power. It has all the elements of classic epic: a sweeping historical backdrop with a very intimate human story at the center. It’s one of those rare fiction movies that has the weight of truth behind it.

Oscar Isaac, recalling a young Omar Sharif in looks and screen presence, plays an Armenian medical student who is caught up in the Armenian Genocide during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. To this day its successor nation, Turkey, refuses to acknowledge the systematic murder of 1.5 million children, women and men.

Not apologize or make reparations -- just say that it happened.

If the film harbors a reservoir of rage about this at its core, then director Terry George, who co-wrote the script with Robin Swicord, takes great pains to conceal it. Instead, the focus is on the love triangle at the center, with Christian Bale playing an American journalist who also romances Charlotte Le Bon.

Rather than an angry polemic, “The Promise” takes on the tone of an elegy -- a wistful tribute to a people who were wronged but still endure, continuing a story that goes back thousands of years.

Isaac plays Mikael, an apothecary from a small town who wants to be a doctor. He can’t afford the tuition to the Imperial Medical School in Constantinople, so he agrees to an arranged marriage to the daughter (Angela Sarafyan) of the wealthiest man in the city, using the dowry of 400 gold coins to pay his fees. The betrothed pair is pragmatic about the arrangement, content to build a life together and hope that affection can grow there.

In the capital, Mikael is awed by the trappings and possibilities of one of the great cities of the world. He falls in with Emre (Marwan Kenzari), a wealthy playboy and son of a high Turkish mercantilist. He stays with his well-to-do cousin, befriending his family and their tutor, a spirited young woman named Ana (Le Bon). Like him, she is from a small Armenian town, but has spent the last few years touring the world with her boyfriend.

Her relationship with Chris Myers (Bale), a noted reporter for the Associated press, is difficult but stable. He fearlessly insults the Turkish leaders’ cozying up to the Germans, and when war breaks out he becomes the leading chronicler of the genocide for the West. Chris is hardly an objective observer, instilling his outrage into every dispatch and telegram.

The love between Mikael and Ana slowly grows, apparent to them both but something they are reluctant to pursue. He has promised himself to another, a vow that seems less and less viable as entire towns and populations are displaced or murdered outright. She feels a duty to stand by Chris, even as his work becomes all-consuming.

Shohreh Aghdashloo is a memorable presence as Mikael’s mother, who pushes him to put his romance aside and remain faithful to his family and traditions. Rade Serbedzija turns up as a leader of Armenian refugees, who is willing to run from the Turks -- but only so far.

It’s a terrific, career-defining performance by Isaac, playing a man of innate gentleness and decency trying to negotiate an age of madness and hatred. It reminded me in a lot of ways of Sharif’s character in “Doctor Zhivago.” I hope his turn will be remembered when the next awards season rolls around.

I should note that “The Promise” has been targeted by genocide deniers for their bile. Among other things, they’re plastering negative ratings on movie websites like IMDb.com. Laughably, it received more than 80,000 ratings after debuting at the Toronto Film Festival with just three screenings, with most of those being one-star scores.

I’ve always said that anyone can be a critic, but the one sacrosanct requirement is that you have to have seen the movie before you’re allowed to offer your opinion on it.

I have seen “The Promise,” and my opinion is it’s the best film so far in 2017.

Review: "Rosewater"

I'm not sure if "Rosewater" would have receive all the intention it's getting if not for the presence of writer/director Jon Stewart, the TV funnyman/self-declared oracle who wanted to take a crack at something more serious. Still, it's a good film, a bit overly earnest, but certainly worthy of our attention.

It's not surprising Stewart chose the plight of journalist Maziar Bahari as his subject. The Canadian-Iranian was arrested by the Iranian regime in 2009 following an appearance on a segment for Stewart's "The Daily Show" in which the interviewer jokingly referred to Bahari as a Western spy. The Muslim fundamentalists who run the government, who aren't big on subtleties, arrested him and kept him in solitary confinement for nearly four months, where he was submitted to emotional and physical torture.

The film, based on a book by Bahari, takes a long time getting to its heart, which is Bahari (played by Gael García Bernal) trapped in a room with his "specialist," aka interrogator. The first 30 minutes or so show him wandering around Tehran covering the Iranian presidential elections, videotaping the sometimes-violent demonstrations, and visiting with his mother (Shohreh Aghdashloo).

This section is supposed to establish Bahari's bona fides as a gentle free thinker who just wants to bear witness to the historical events taking place. But it slows down the proceedings greatly and sap them of emotional strength.

Once captured, though, the movie takes off even as the story stays more or less locked in a single room. Bahari is kept blindfolded almost all the time, facing a wall, while his specialist tries to elicit a confession out of him. Over the weeks and months that follow, he learns little about the man other than he uses rosewater as a cologne.

Trapped the rest of the time in a lonely cell, the man's mind begins to wander -- thinking of his pregnant wife, his father (Haluk Bilginer), who was himself kept a prisoner during the days of the Shah, and his sister (Golshifteh Farahani), who suffered a similar fate for being a Communist in the 1980s.

The conversations with his imagined father were the most interesting to me, as Bahari falls further into despair and considers giving up and signing the confession. In a demonstration of old-school manliness, his father's spirit urges him to "give them nothing" and resist the beatings, and walk out of prison with his head held high -- even if it takes years.

Eventually, Bahari finds a way to overcome his captors using his imagination and willpower. It's the triumph of the beta male.

The performances are generally solid, especially Kim Bodnia as "Rosewater," Bahari's chief interrogator. Bodnia portrays him as a man who knows he has an awful job, but tries to make the best of it as he can. Over time he forms a bond with his prisoner that is surprising to him, especially when his superior orders him to deliver an arbitrary beating.

"Rosewater" isn't a great drama, but it's a pretty good one. Whatever else you want to say, Jon Stewart has a future in movies if ever gets tired of being incredibly rich and successful on television.