30
No bodices were harmed in veteran French filmmaker Patrice Leconte's chaste and bloodless English-language debut.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
67
Entertainment Weekly by Chris Nashawaty
It’s well made but drearily familiar.
40
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
A romantic triangle featuring Rebecca Hall, Alan Rickman and “Game of Thrones” costar Richard Madden has no business being this dull.
50
Slant Magazine by Jordan Osterer
Patrice Leconte struggles to find a coherent rhythm, a problem exacerbated by a hurried running time that compresses some of the novella's more interesting socio-political nuances.
30
Led by a trio of lackluster performances from Alan Rickman, Rebecca Hall and “Game of Thrones” thesp Richard Madden, this awkward, passionless drama conveys neither the sensuality nor the drawn-out sense of longing required by its period tale of a young secretary who falls in love with his employer’s wife.
33
The Playlist by Oliver Lyttelton
Leconte’s never been the edgiest of filmmakers, but A Promise is so free of anything close to an edge that it’s like watching a beige sphere for ninety-odd minutes—and it feels much longer.
40
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
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.