Armenian genocide film The Promise unfairly panned on IMDb

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

As a general rule of thumb, we here at JoBlo don't report the latest in politics or religion. We report film news, we review the movies, and we do our best to deliver content that's fun and insightful regarding the film medium. That's what we love doing and that's what we love sharing. Admittedly, sometimes that does cross over in the ever-controversial realm of politics and being that the founder of this movie fansite (Berge Garabedian aka JoBlo) is of Armenian heritage, he thought it was important to bring the following to light.

THE PROMISE is a film written and directed by Terry George (HOTEL RWANDA) that is set during the last days of the Ottoman Empire. Starring Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac, the film aims to deliver a compelling love story amidst the atrocities of the Armenian genocide which took place from 1915-1923 and resulted in the deaths of 1.5 million people. Similar to The Holocaust, there are a number of people and organizations who choose to ignore or suppress the events of the Armenian Genocide, including efforts from the Turkish government and the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

That leads us to IMDb. As of now, it looks as though there have only been 3 public screenings of THE PROMISE, one of which was at the Toronto International Film Festival (you can read our review of the film HERE). As of now, there are over 89,000 reviews on IMDb for THE PROMISE. To put that in perspective, there are only 7,000 reviews for the upcoming DOCTOR STRANGE – a movie that is far more anticipated by the general movie-going public. Furthermore, over 55,000 of those reviews are a 1-star rating.

Recognition for the Armenian Genocide has really only happened recently, and it's painfully obvious that lower ratings are being given to a film, sight unseen, in order to suppress or sully a story that's looking to shed some light on our past. There's nothing wrong with disliking a film for what it is (we didn't exactly think it was SCHINDLER'S LIST) but this kind of agenda gives us some insight into how flawed a ratings system can be, and to what lengths people will go to in order to take advantage of it. At the end of the day, as with everything else, it's important for people to do their own research and think for themselves. We can't improve as a people if we don't acknowledge everything that's come before, and if there's any silver lining to be found with this ratings fiasco, it's that it will educate more people on the events that occurred.