David
Cronenberg
has
once
again
come
out
with
an
intriguing
thriller
a
genuinely
troubling
and
unsettling
movie.
You
come
out
of
it
with
a
feeling
of
having
been
physically
present
in
the
story,
not
just
an
innocent
spectator.
The
blood,
pain
and
gore
cling
to
you
long
after
you
have
left
the
cinema
hall.
In
London,
a
14-year-old
bruised
and
bleeding
teenager
collapses
at
a
hospital.
Hospital
midwife
Anna
(Naomi
Watts)
watches
helplessly
as
the
girl
dies
in
childbirth.
Besides
the
orphaned
infant,
she
leaves
behind
a
diary
that
chronicles
her
horrific
exploitation
and
that
may
contain
information
about
the
identities
of
those
responsible
for
it
and
her
child.
Anna
is
soon
obsessed
with
identifying
these
vile
beasts
and
turning
them
in,
exposing
her
to
considerable
danger.
She
soon
finds
herself
in
the
middle
of
an
underground,
underworld
scam
in
human
trafficking
and
is
at
once
fascinated
and
repelled
by
it.
Naive
and
vulnerable
but
hopelessly
determined
to
find
the
men
who
let
that
young
girl
die,
without
actually
knowing
it,
Anna
is
soon
entangled
with
the
Russian
mob.
Where
does
Anna's
search
take
her?
Does
she
free
herself
from
the
conniving
villains
who
are
now
after
her?
The
movie
is
basically
about
the
moral
scandal
of
slavery,
the
traffic
in
human
bodies
and
human
misery
that
persists,
in
secret
and
in
the
shadows,
even
in
the
modern,
cosmopolitan
West.
The
brutality
does
not
make
you
wince
in
disgust;
it
makes
you
writhe
in
pain.
Scripted
by
Steve
Knight
and
directed
by
David
Cronenberg,
Eastern
Promises
is
a
routine
thriller
that
has
been
deftly
transformed
into
something
that
truly
pierces
your
mind.
Like
Cronenberg's
earlier
movies
History
Of
Violence,
Spider,
The
Fly
and
Crash,
here
too,
we
are
baffled
by
the
ideas
he
presents
to
us
and
the
way
he
has
packaged
them
all.
As
in
the
case
of
his
scripts
for
movies
such
as
Dirty
Pretty
and
Amazing
Grace,
Knight
proves
that
he
is
clearly
as
interested
in
the
social
and
ethical
implications
of
the
story
as
he
is
in
its
twists
and
reversals.
While
Knight
tugs
at
your
heart,
Cronenberg
creeps
under
your
skin.
The
result
is
a
movie
that
will
haunt
and
taunt
you
for
a
long
time
to
come.