Excellent but underrated film

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It looks pretty and, very slowly, seems to be building towards something, but almost nothing of a dramatically satisfying/unpredictable/entertaining nature happens. It has the appearance of a vanity project. Someone's grandparent had an interesting life, so their story was turned into a film, but someone forgot to include enough drama/characterisation/plot to keep an audience awake . A bright young man (played by a very dull actor) is employed by an older man, an industrial magnate. The young man is attracted to the magnate's wife ( a very dull actress) and vice-versa. The young man goes to Mexico, on business, and promises to return within 2 years. The magnate dies. The young man doesn't return from Mexico. Eventually he does. He and the magnate's wife can now be together. Nothing much else happens. The End.

Perfect costuming and set decor. Alan Rickman is splendid and Rebecca Hall has won me over. But. The camera-work is negatively strange and distracting at times. The sudden zoom ins and (tragically trendy) shaky cam, not my cup of tea. I wish my remote control had a stabilizer button.

The novel was exceptional and the love story devastatingly sad, but the film had so little chemistry between Rebecca Hall and Richard Madden that I felt nothing. Really didn't care about them at all. Not one bit. Nada.Alan Rickman was extraordinary as usual (and so weird watching this film knowing this was one of his last films), but even he couldn't save this movie. I've always been a big fan of Patrice Leconte, especially Man on a Train, a film that had a quiet haunting beauty about it. If only he had been able to suffuse A Promise with that same emotional weight.

I watched this film and was anxious to see a period piece set in Germany pre WWI but it never quite got off the ground. There is no chemistry between the two lovers. The male lead is not somebody a wife would fall in love with even if he is there all the time. He had no personality. He does not make her laugh, is not all that great with the son and offers no sex appeal. Rickman offers the only acting spark. It would have been interesting to see more of what Germany was like leading up, during and after the defeat of the war. Would make for such wonderful material both in plot and theme. A feeble attempt was made to stir up the politico in a scene close to the end where there is an aggressive street demonstration with people wearing swastikas. The Nazi party did not come into existence at the time the film depicts (end of war 1918). The DAP which was the predecessor of the Nazi party came into being in 1919 but it was not known enough for a street demonstration in 1918 and not with Nazi swastikas. These are simple facts I found online. I would not have researched had there not been that street demonstration scene with swastikas. It was totally out of place for the rest of the film. There should have been more of these types of scenes as there were riots in Germany in 1916 because of shortages in fuel and food. The film totally missed the effects the war had on the German people. The kiss at the end was as passionless as the whole lifeless movie.