Alan rickman 2014, An unconsummated long-distance passion that resists the erosion of time and memory is the subject of the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig’s posthumously published novella, “Journey Into the Past.” When addressed in the movies, this kind of longing is usually diluted into soap opera and its darker psychological implications suffocated by a gauzy romanticism. The French director Patrice Leconte’s film, “A Promise,” adapted from the novella, is no exception.
This tasteful daydream, which features one of Gabriel Yared’s lushest film scores, is the first English-language movie by Mr. Leconte, whose critical reputation has declined since its peak in the mid-1990s when his “Ridicule” won Cesar awards (the French Oscars) for best film and director. Playing the principal characters in “A Promise,” the British actors Alan Rickman, Rebecca Hall and Richard Madden lend a high-toned “Masterpiece Theater” gloss to a story that begins in pre-World War I Germany and ends there after the war when Nazism is on the rise.
An incalculable asset is the presence of Mr. Rickman, whose character, Karl Hoffmeister is a wealthy, ailing German steel manufacturer. Through minute changes of expression and tone of voice, Mr. Rickman is a master of insinuation and ambiguity. As he stealthily observes his beautiful, much younger wife, Lotte (Ms. Hall) resisting her attraction to his bright, handsome new young assistant, Friedrich (Mr. Madden), you’re never quite sure if he wants to kill Friedrich or adopt him.
A keen-eyed eager beaver, whom Mr. Madden (“Game of Thrones”) imbues with a sensitivity at times reminiscent of the young Montgomery Clift, Friedrich is a steelworks employee who earned an engineering degree despite having grown up a ward of the state. In contemporary parlance, he is a young man on the make.
Abandoning his garret and his working-glass girlfriend, he moves into his boss’s house and becomes tutor to Karl’s son, Otto (Toby Murray). The instant attraction between Friedrich and Lotte blossoms into a mutual obsession that Lotte refuses to acknowledge until the night before Friedrich leaves for Mexico to work for two years. They vow to wait until he returns. But World War I breaks out, and nearly a decade passes before they reunite.
Ms. Hall’s Lotte is the weak link in the triangle. Despite all her character’s flowery words of longing, she can’t convey the heat bottled under Lotte’s demure demeanor. Ms. Hall makes the right gestures, but you never sense her heart beating faster or see her blush.
The film’s other insurmountable problem is the compression of its story. The anguish of the lovers’ decade-long separation can’t be evoked in a matter of minutes, and when Friedrich returns looking pretty much unchanged except for a limp, it’s as though he took a week’s working vacation and came home more exhausted than when he left.
This tasteful daydream, which features one of Gabriel Yared’s lushest film scores, is the first English-language movie by Mr. Leconte, whose critical reputation has declined since its peak in the mid-1990s when his “Ridicule” won Cesar awards (the French Oscars) for best film and director. Playing the principal characters in “A Promise,” the British actors Alan Rickman, Rebecca Hall and Richard Madden lend a high-toned “Masterpiece Theater” gloss to a story that begins in pre-World War I Germany and ends there after the war when Nazism is on the rise.An incalculable asset is the presence of Mr. Rickman, whose character, Karl Hoffmeister is a wealthy, ailing German steel manufacturer. Through minute changes of expression and tone of voice, Mr. Rickman is a master of insinuation and ambiguity. As he stealthily observes his beautiful, much younger wife, Lotte (Ms. Hall) resisting her attraction to his bright, handsome new young assistant, Friedrich (Mr. Madden), you’re never quite sure if he wants to kill Friedrich or adopt him.
A keen-eyed eager beaver, whom Mr. Madden (“Game of Thrones”) imbues with a sensitivity at times reminiscent of the young Montgomery Clift, Friedrich is a steelworks employee who earned an engineering degree despite having grown up a ward of the state. In contemporary parlance, he is a young man on the make.
Abandoning his garret and his working-glass girlfriend, he moves into his boss’s house and becomes tutor to Karl’s son, Otto (Toby Murray). The instant attraction between Friedrich and Lotte blossoms into a mutual obsession that Lotte refuses to acknowledge until the night before Friedrich leaves for Mexico to work for two years. They vow to wait until he returns. But World War I breaks out, and nearly a decade passes before they reunite.
Ms. Hall’s Lotte is the weak link in the triangle. Despite all her character’s flowery words of longing, she can’t convey the heat bottled under Lotte’s demure demeanor. Ms. Hall makes the right gestures, but you never sense her heart beating faster or see her blush.
The film’s other insurmountable problem is the compression of its story. The anguish of the lovers’ decade-long separation can’t be evoked in a matter of minutes, and when Friedrich returns looking pretty much unchanged except for a limp, it’s as though he took a week’s working vacation and came home more exhausted than when he left.
