Eastern Promises (2007)

Stars: Viggo Mortensen and Naomi Watts

Director: David Cronenberg

Plugs: None

The film Eastern Promises takes its title from promises made to young women in Eastern Bloc countries about the opportunities that await them in the West. Instead of well-paying jobs with a chance for advancement, many find themselves in sexual slavery in cities such as Paris, London, or New York. It's both a grim reality and fodder for David Cronenberg's new thriller.

It was eastern promises, apparently, that ultimately brought a pregnant fourteen-year-old girl to a London hospital, where she promptly drops dead in front of a horrified nurse named Anna (Naomi Watts). Anna only gradually learns of her past when she finds the girl's diary, inconveniently written in Russian. A bit of detective work brings Anna to a posh restaurant the girl had some connection to, run by an elderly Russian man named Semyon (in a great menace-limned performance by Armin Mueller-Stahl), who soon offers to help Anna by translating the diary.

What at first seems like a kindhearted gesture soon turns scary as Anna suspects that Semyon may be part of a gang that kidnapped the girl, along with his hotheaded son Kirill and Kirill's mysterious chauffer/ right-hand man Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). Soon Anna has her hands full trying to piece together the girl's past, find the girl's family, and deal with the menace of the Russian mob. A strange relationship develops between Nikolai and Anna, alternately threatening and protective.

Eastern Promises is a layered, well-crafted thriller, and does a good job of keeping the audience guessing. There's more to everyone than meets the eye, and the actors are given well-rounded characters. Eastern Promises is not Cronenberg's best work and doesn't hold a candle to the chilly effectiveness of earlier thrillers such as Crash and Dead Ringers. Though the script is strong, there's no excuse for a few silly plot holes (apparently in London strangers are allowed to wander into hospitals and simply walk out with any infants they choose). Still, it's a good film with good acting; Mortensen continues his string of fascinating character portrayals (dating at least back to 1990; for those who haven't seen a young Mortensen in the bizarre, haunting film The Reflecting Skin, you're missing out). With A History of Violence and now Eastern Promises, Cronenberg shows that he remains a director to watch.