Eastern Promises

Anna is a midwife working in a hospital in East London. When a Russian teenager dies in childbirth, Anna decides to take care of the baby. The dead girl’s diary reveals her life of forced prostitution and drug addiction. It also leads Anna to the world of Russian émigrés and a restaurant where she meets the venerable but by no means elderly patriarch Semyon – an avuncular but brutal boss in London’s Russian mafia. In David Cronenberg’s dark underworld thriller, Armin Mueller-Stahl once again embodies a worldly-wise senior. An alternative ‘Christmas film’ which instead of bringing good cheer evokes the horror of a family of unbridled mobsters.