Cronenberg delivers on his Promises.
Written: Sep 22 '07
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Read the review.
Cons: Too disturbing (shocking violent and sexual content) for some viewers.
The Bottom Line: ...there's too much truth in the violent excess to make for a film that's anything less than undeniably powerful. One of the year's best. [4.5/5 - rounded up]
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| clarkparker's Full Review: Eastern Promises |
In Eastern Promises, Anna (Naomi Watts), a young midwife working at London's Trafalgar Hospital is swept into a violent underworld of the Russian Mafia when she tries to translate a diary from the body of young Jane Doe who dies during a delivery. What Anna can't predict though is how deeply invested in the girl's tragic life she'll become, both in her longing to give the orphaned baby back to her family, and unraveling the circumstances that ended her life. What follows when Anna unwittingly enters a Russian restaurant on a tip from the girl's journal is a meeting that isn't as it seems with the restaurant's owner, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) who isn't as he seems, who becomes obsessed with getting his hands on the possibly incriminating diary. Semyon's motives, identity, and capability become shockingly clear as the film progresses, and are a far cry from the borscht-cooking, violin-playing grandfather Anna first meets. We are introduced to other minor characters, most notably Semyon's son Kirill (Vincent Cassell), and the suitably creepy chauffer/grunt, Nikolai (Viggo "don't-call-me-Aragorn" Mortensen in an Oscar-worthy performance).
Eastern Promises is a complex morality tale crafted in so twisted a fashion it could only have come from David Cronenberg. In a film reminiscent of The Godfather, Cronenberg weaves a blistering commentary on violence, loyalty, masculine excess, and morality weaved into a nuanced psychological thriller, and there's nary a moment of wasted screen time. It's difficult to watch, and punctuated with shocking bursts of Cronenberg's trademark extreme violence, and yet each of these moments is saying something about the characters it depicts. The film delves deep into the underworld of criminal society comprised of the types of people we pray we never meet; it shakes us up by realizing these people as ultimately human, yet fraught with inhuman tendencies. While Anna can rightfully be called the film's protagonist, the film really revolves around the fractured moral compass of Nikolai. And it makes for incredible filmmaking. Spot-on supporting performances from Vincent Cassell and Armin Mueller-Stahl serve to breathe life into the characters that Cronenberg regulates with such care within the world he creates, which resembles our own a little too closely for comfort. And that's why the movie works; much like 2005's A History of Violence (the previous collaboration between Mortensen and Cronenberg), there's too much truth in the violent excess to make for a film that's anything less than undeniably powerful. One of the year's best.
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Serious Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Ending
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Epinions.com ID:
clarkparker
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Member: Joshua Bertram
Location: Saskatchewan, Canada
Reviews written: 32
Trusted by: 6 members
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