On paper, this period romantic drama has great potential. With Alan Rickman (Truly, Madly, Deeply) and Richard Madden (Game of Thrones' Robb Stark) as competitors for the affections of Vicky Cristina Barcelona's Rebecca Hall, what could there possibly be not to like? On screen, a fair bit, as it happens.
Rickman's line in ennui-inflected wryness is as good as anyone's, and here he reliably delivers the kind of subtle, watchful performance for which he is well-regarded. Madden, meanwhile, handles his role as the older man's protege and rival in love with almost the same deftness as he swung a sword in the wildly popular HBO sword and sauciness series. In the crucial part as the initially reserved then enthusiastic object of obsessive desire, however, Hall fails to convince and thus the prerequisite passion that should be the story's engine utterly fails to fire.
The pacing is also problematic, compressing the young would-be-lover's decade-long separation following their mutual declaration of devotion to the point where it registers less as yearning-filled years and more like a brief and inconvenient, but not intolerable, hiatus.
Ultimately, A Promise doesn't deliver.
