by Donald Lind

Created on: September 26, 2007

"Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises" an Intimate Look at Family and Betrayal

David Cronenberg's "Eastern Promises" begins with the very graphic throat slashing of a high-ranking captain in the Russian Mafia. The scenes that follow seem to suggest that this startling open was a random occurrence, but it served to show the violent world an outsider was about to observe.

That same evening, right around the time of the killing, a midwife named Anna (Oscar nominee Naomi Watts) helps deliver the baby to an underage girl. The girl dies, but the child lives. After finding the young girl's diary, she hopes to discover the child's next of kin, but the writing is in Russian. Anna is of Russian descent, but London-born, so she tries her uncle Stepan (Jerzy Skolimowski), and then later tries to find answers at the restaurant indicated on a card found in the diary.

Anna's journey leads her to the doorstep of Soyka (Aleksandar Mikic), who seems unusually interested in getting the diary for himself before he can help the young baby. Anna also crosses paths with Soyka's wired son Kirill (Vincent Cassel) and his driver Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen). Anna arrives just as these two are sent on a mission to take care of the body left in the film's opening murder scene. Nikolai soon after must follow Anna and make sure her good intentions to find the newborn baby's family won't uncover any dirty secrets about the family he protects.

Loyalty and promises of a better life are recurring themes throughout "Eastern Promises." Nikolai is merely a driver for a powerful Russian Mafia family, yet is fiercely loyal and protective. When he meets Anna, he is sympathetic and helpful to her to a degree. Yet his loyalty to Soyka and his captain Kirill are unquestioned. When Anna asks how he could do what he does, he always replies, "I am just a driver."

Mortensen plays Nikolai as seemingly a hard line driver, but shows a hidden smirk that suggests he does this to further his own climb up the ladder. He deals with his volatile captain with a degree of tolerance, knowing that the promises of greater power will pry him away from the control of his belligerent boss. Aside from a more-or-less passable accent, Mortensen as Nikolai offers the film a stable rock of undying loyalty and trust, at the very least to his own hidden ambitions.

Anna, who herself once miscarried, accepts the mission to find the orphaned child's family as her own personal quest. She feels she owes it to herself as a mother figure and put of

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