Culture

Rating: B+

Have you ever had one of those love affairs that was spine-tinglingly perfect in every way – except, perhaps, for that tiny, insignificant detail, that one of you is not technically “available?” Maybe the other person was married to your boss? Then has Patrice Leconte got a film for you!

A Promise is a romantic drama based on the novel Journey into the Past by Stefan Zweig. Set in the 1910s, it features a wealthy German industrial tycoon (Alan Rickman, total man-crush, obviously) training his brilliant protégé, Friedrich (Richard Madden; you know him as Robb Stark), without realising that the young lad has been coveting his wife, Charlotte (Rebecca Hall).

The film proceeds in the manner of the worst TV soap opera love triangles, with contrived situations partnered with banal dialogue, intended to throw the characters into as many precarious positions as possible in the running time. Frankly, I wished the characters would all, please, shut up. Just shut up. Shut. Up. It was simply awful to listen to. The characters worked in the book, but did not translate well onto screen. The dialogue was also all in British English, which is notably strange as the story takes place entirely in Germany. The price one pays when one uses English-speaking actors, one supposes.

With these two distracting dialogue frustrations painfully gnawing at me, I almost missed the absolutely spectacular part of the experience: the images on the screen. If they had made this film differently, as some kind of opera-esque novelty that had no dialogue at all, just letting the evocative score, artistic characterisations of the three leads, and exquisite cinematography carry each story point as slowly, delightfully, artfully, lustfully, and effectively as the memorable few times we explore Charlotte’s delicate neckline through Friedrich’s lingering gaze, thus revealing the boundless inner world of his desire for her, it could have been something really special. So, in the end, I can recommend you at least get the DVD to play on mute the next time you need to set the mood for your couch date with that special someone.