Movie Review for Eastern Promises (2007)

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Review #538 of 365
Movie Review of Eastern Promises (2007) [R] 100 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $13.00
Where Viewed: Landmark Mayan, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 4 October 2007
Time: 5:00 pm
DVD Release Date: 26 December 2007 (click date to purchase or pre-order)
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer

Soundtrack: order the CD below

Directed by: David Cronenberg (A History of Violence)
Screenplay by : Steven Knight (Amazing Grace)

Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Naomi Watts (The Painted Veil) • Sinéad Cusack (V for Vendetta) • Jerzy Skolimowski (Before Night Falls) • Viggo Mortensen (A History of Violence) • Vincent Cassel (Ocean's Thirteen) • Armin Mueller-Stahl ("The West Wing")

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Click to read the spoiler points for Eastern Promises
While the title and the trailer mislead a bit as to the story and wonder of Eastern Promises, the film turns out to be an interesting thriller with one major twist. The power of the David Cronenberg-directed film, though comes not so much from the twist as it does from the subtle psychological moments of the principle characters. An English midwife of Russian descent named Anna (Naomi Watts) finds herself in the middle of a complex chess game played with the lives of real people by the vory v zakone (Russian Maffia) in London when a young, pregnant girl named Tatiana arrives at her hospital and dies during delivery. The only clue to her history lies buried in her diary written in her native language of Russian. Anna tries to get her uncle Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski) to translate it for her, but he refuses believing it unwise to rob the secrets of the dead. In the diary, she finds a card for a restaurant called the Trans-Siberian and she goes there seeking to learn if anyone there knows anything about this young girl. The baby, whom she's decided to call Christina since she's born so close to Christmas, will become a ward of the state if relatives cannot be located in a timely fashion. There she unwittingly meets the local Godfather of the vory v zakone, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) living in plain sight as a restaurateur and importer. He claims to know nothing of the girl, however, he is more than willing to translate the diary from Russian for her. At face value, he seems like a kind and loving grandfather. Beneath the veneer however lies a ruthless and cutthroat villain. During her visit, she's insulted a few times by Semyon's son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel) and offered a drink by Kirill's driver and underling, Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). She zips away planning on returning with the diary the next day. In the mean time, we are given insight into the day-to-day operations of Semyon's organization which involves child prostitution, murder, and drug trafficking. Nikolai has to clean up one of Kirill's messes, a dead body of a member of the Chechens who was gossiping about Kirill in impolite terms. While subtle, there is a suspect chemistry between Kirill and Nikolai. Lasting glances between the two seem to open the door to a deeper longing than can be acted upon in these circumstances. Kirill is obviously a very confused young man trying to prove himself the tough guy and heir to his father's business, but failing inside somewhere to live up to ALL the expectations both stated and unstated.

The key to everything lies in the diary, if only Anna could read Tatiana's cries for help herself. Instead, she gains glimpses at first about her life as a 14-year old prostitute, raped, and drugged on a daily basis via utterances of vitriolic prose her uncle musters out of curiosity from his first reading. He vows not to read another word, as his sister also Anna's mother, Helen (Sinéad Cusack), tries to calm him down. And Anna's photocopy of the diary delivered unwittingly to Semyon, will give her little more as he, of course, has everything to lose from its translation. The second visit to the Trans-Siberian, finds her without transportation home because her father's prized Russian motorcycle breaks down. Nikolai is only too happy to drive her home though she resists all attempts to gain knowledge of her whereabouts. Semyon knows too much about her already, and when he reads the diary, he knows that the diary and anyone who knows too much about it must be silenced.

This seemingly uncomplicated story grows ever more complicated as Anna gets closer and closer to the truth. Again, though, it is the nuances at work in the subtext of dialogue and interaction of the characters that heightens the value of the story and film. What never quite makes sense, though, is that given the great intelligence of Anna and obvious intuition, why does she continue to press to try to get the baby into the hands of relatives. Isn't it obvious to her that the child's fate would be steered down a path probably not dissimilar from that of her mother? This incongruity and poorly plotted motivation, pales in the grander scheme at play. Getting over it is relatively easy in comparison to grappling with the ruthless world of Semyon who will, quite literally, stop at nothing to protect his family and his honor. Betrayal and intrigue are his guiding principles beyond the love and adoration of his disappointing son.

Naomi Watts brings her understated powers of hidden strength and guile to the role of Anna making her a true force with which to be reckoned. Yet, in the end, it is the power triangle of Armin Mueller-Stahl's Semyon, Viggo Mortensen's Nikolai, and Vincent Cassel's Kirill that lifts this picture to the top of its game. Each actor primes his character with the incendiary fuel of love-starved passion be it that driven by the loyalty of a son to his father, friends who become brothers, or father's fighting to protect their family's honor. With near-flawless execution, Viggo Mortensen conceives Nikolai as a stoic-type with the brilliance of a caged tiger that has plotted his attack for the moment the trainer turns his back and with the forgotten cage door open. Vincent Cassel takes his turn with a leading character and delivers a surprisingly complex performance. The "is he" or "isn't he" notion always lurking just beneath the surface makes Kirill an enigma that anyone would want to crack. While the crème that holds these two in check and advises us as much as the characters to pay close attention to even his slightest wrinkle of an eyebrow is Armin Mueller-Stahl's Semyon. His gentle demeanor cleverly masks a mind capable of terrible torment and callousness. Semyon truly is a monster in disguise.

Best known for his hand at spectacular horror films, David Cronenberg with Eastern Promises and his previous film, A History of Violence (also starring Viggo Mortensen), turns his talents onto the genre of psychological thriller yielding films that both share a standard. There is a promise to build exquisite characters embedded in a good story, but that neither will be overshadowed by the unnecessary or grotesque. There will be a strong level of realism and believability among the characters that will drive the picture not the other way around. Still mastering this, Cronenberg has made two interesting and very good films, with Eastern Promises surpassing A History of Violence a bit as the better of the two.

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Other Projects Featuring Eastern Promises (2007)
Cast Members
Naomi Watts • Sinéad Cusack • Jerzy Skolimowski
Viggo Mortensen • Vincent Cassel • Armin Mueller-Stahl
Director
David Cronenberg
Writer
Steven Knight
CD Soundtrack
DVD
VHS
Review-lite Eastern Promises (2007) [max of 150 words]
Best known for his spectacular horror films, David Cronenberg delves again into the psychological thriller genre with Eastern Promises. Featuring Naomi Watts as an English midwife of Russian descent who finds herself in the midst of a complex chess game played with the lives of real people by the vory v zakone (Russian Maffia), the film opens with the death of a pregnant girl during delivery of her daughter. Finding relatives to care for it becomes her obsession and the dead girl's diary her only key. Soon, she will inadvertently find herself embroiled in a complex power struggle in a family triangle between elder, Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), his heir and son, Kirill (Vincent Cassel), and Kirill's underling, Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). Still mastering this genre, Cronenberg has made two interesting and very good films, with Eastern Promises surpassing A History of Violence a bit as the better of the two.
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