When we were children, many of us were taught the importance of a promise – the unbreakable, infallible pledge to someone that could not be challenged or destroyed, regardless of whatever obstacles stand in our way. As we grow up, the importance of a promise begins to waver, and they are soon used as tools of manipulation or to get ahead. However, there are some instances where a promise is still an ironclad agreement, and when it comes to some vitally important matter, it could be a challenge to even entertain the idea of reneging on such a promise. This is the foundation for the novel Das Versprechen by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, which has been adapted to film a number of times, perhaps most notably by Sean Penn in his third (and undeniably most ambitious) directorial outing, who reworks the story into The Pledge, moving the narrative from snowy Western Europe to the Pacific Northwest, where we encounter Jerry Black, a recently-retired police officer who is pulled back into the fray when a girl is murdered on the night of his retirement party, and he promises her bereaved mother that he will find the killer, at any cost. A film that seems simple in theory, The Pledge proves to be one of the defining works of a very particular era in filmmaking, where Hollywood had started to appreciate more small-scale productions, and where the lines between mainstream and independent cinema were growing increasingly more blurred, and taking advantage of the situation, Penn proves himself to be an incredibly gifted filmmaker, and someone whose work is polished, complex and interesting, and pays sufficient tribute to this layered novel that tackles some intimidating themes. A profoundly moving, genre-blending project that sees the director and his collaborators skirting around the perilous edges of the human condition, The Pledge is quite simply one of the best films of its era, and a hidden gem ripe for rediscovery.

One of the great benefits of crime films produced around the time of The Pledge is that they did not need to adhere to any strict structure, since it was a genre undergoing something of a reconfiguration – film noir was consolidated into the past, and while neo-noir was still quite prominent, it is such an ambigious classification, it was difficult to create a precise definition of what it entails to be categorised as such. Penn takes advantage of the vague nature of the genre to create this film, which has several different layers, each one steeped in a different style of filmmaking that he was interested in exploring. It bears quite a bit of similarity to The Crossing Guard, his directorial debut that proved that he was perfectly adept at helming a production, but while that was a thornier film that was decidedly rough around the edges, The Pledge is much more polished, and we find that the director is more open to playing with genre in different ways. On the surface, it seems like a conventional crime drama, with a straightforward story that focuses on the efforts of a police officer to solve a murder. However, when the crime itself is solved within the first act (or at least that is what we are led to believe), there is still quite a bit of space to explore other subjects, which lends itself to a slightly more experimental approach. Much of this manifests in the tone – The Pledge is quite gritty, and it formed in the image of the hardboiled investigative dramas that were proven to be extraordinarily popular across generations – but there’s a lingering darkness that is even more bleak than we would have initially expected based on a cursory glance. The film both celebrates and subverts conventions, and it avoids being too traditional of a neo-noir, instead functioning as one that is slightly more off-kilter, both in tone and how it handles some of the more challenging aspects of the story, always presenting them in a very different angle.

The Pledge is designed to be a gritty, character-based piece, and as a result, it required someone who could occupy the central role of Jerry Black, bringing the character to life in a way that is powerful, honest and unforgettable. Sometimes, the most obvious facts are the ones we overlook, and we need to be reminded of them from time to time – in this case, we have Jack Nicholson, whose status as one of the greatest actors of his generation has never been questioned but rather obscured with the idea that as he grew older, he stopped making films that challenged him – and looking at some of his output between the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were certainly many performances that didn’t require much from him as an actor, especially since he cultivated such an obvious screen persona. However, it bears remembering that he continued to turn in incredible performances when the material asked him to extend beyond the grinning, devilish persona he usually was cast to play. The Pledge is perhaps his greatest late-career performance, which is not said lightly (especially when he has the incredible About Schmidt the following year), but which feels difficult to argue against once we see the scope of the work he is doing in this film. This is a performance in which all of Nicholson’s usual quirks, including his tendency to go gleefully over-the-top, are set inside for a more complex, nuanced depiction of a man trying to do his best to solve a crime that he knows will likely never be resolved, and the humanity he brings to the part is staggering – it feels like we are rediscovering Nicholson as an actor in his entirety, which is an extraordinary achievement. He is joined by a fantastic supporting cast, populated by several incredible actors, and while they may mostly only appear for a few scenes, they bring a lot of nuance to the film, which orbits entirely around Nicholson but also makes sure to pay close attention to the supporting players at the same time.

Through the process of looking at Nicholson’s masterful performance, we start to decode the film and realize that The Pledge is much more than just a straightforward crime drama, it carries a lot more meaning than simply being about a murder investigation. Through the central performance, we discover that this film is secretly about several different themes – primarily, it is about an old man who is forced into a retirement he doesn’t desire, made to live a life he would prefer not to have, and whose only way to get out of this slump is to avoid surrendering to these demands, and taking it upon himself to keep a promise that he made, knowing that it will give him a sense of purpose. Through this approach, we find that the film makes some profound statements on the nature of reality and its relationship with the delusions and fantasies that often emerge as a result of trauma. It’s a harsh film, but the story itself, as bleak as it may be, is only secondary when it comes to the innermost concepts that drive the film. Seeing this character do whatever he can to solve this crime, not because he feels the need to bring someone to justice (as far as everyone is concerned, the culprit has been apprehended and met a gruesome end), but rather to fill the void of loneliness and the inevitable feeling that he lacks purpose. One has to wonder whether or not Jerry knows that the real killer is out there, or if he continues on this crusade, knowing that the resolution will never come, and instead, he will remain in this state of limbo forever, searching for someone who possibly doesn’t even exist (at least not in the form he envisions), realising that he cannot break a promise if there isn’t any way to end it conclusively. Many complex ideas simmer beneath the surface of The Pledge, which is a complex character study about regret, remorse, guilt and the desire to make a difference, even if these efforts can have a negative result.

Something that becomes increasingly more clear, as controversial of an opinion as it may be, is that Penn is possibly a better director than he is as an actor since both The Crossing Guard and The Pledge demonstrate a complexity that far exceeds what he has been able to do as an actor, even though his contributions there have been quite good on their own merits. The visual components of this film are quite remarkable, and there is a complexity in how Penn delivers some of the more challenging aspects of the story, especially in how he structures the film and draws on certain images and ideas in the process. His direction is oddly fluid, despite its seemingly straightforward nature, and as someone with only limited experience behind the camera by this point, the fact that he managed to portray such a strong visual style is incredibly impressive and grounds the film remarkably well. There are certainly many aspects of the film that immediately call for our attention, but his choice to approach a lot of these themes more subtly, rather than resorting to the hysterics, both allows the story to feel more authentic and gives it a more mysterious atmosphere. Moments such as the protagonist delivering the tragic news to the parents of the deceased girl, which is shot from a distance and entirely out of earshot, or the dreamlike sequences in which he allows his imagination to run rampant, are integral to the overall identity of the film, which becomes a layered, complex examination of several themes, which Penn commits to the screen incredibly well and with such vigour and artistic resonance. He is a very gifted filmmaker, but he has unfortunately not made a film that comes anywhere close to the outright brilliance that underpins this one.

Harsh, complex and achingly beautiful, The Pledge is an incredible piece of cinema, tenderly handcrafted by a director who set out to create something remarkable. He takes an older text and reworks it to be a quintessentially American story, looking not only at the culture and social structure but also the underlying tensions that sometimes define the country and its people, which is a subject that Penn has been active in exploring over the years in his films. It’s a very simple premise, but the sharp, forthright direction carries a lot of weight, and we find that the best moments are surprisingly those in which the film is most quiet, ruminating on the central subjects in a poetic and meditative way, leaving very little space for excess, which makes this such a profoundly moving, and also undeniably bleak, affair. It sometimes can come across as needlessly harsh, and there’s certainly a level of darkness lingering over the film that makes it quite uncomfortable, but this is all purposeful, with Penn’s intentions being extremely clear right from the start. It’s a beautiful film, but one that doesn’t take any shortcuts, and makes sure that we feel every emotion, which it conveys through the dense, sometimes perilous atmosphere that lingers throughout the film, making it such a deeply compelling examination of the human condition, paying particular attention to the darker recesses in which the most insidious secrets reside. Deeply unnerving but profoundly captivating, The Pledge is a masterful piece of storytelling that avoids tropes and instead delivers a striking story of remorse and revenge, and how a single tragic event can serve to be the impetus for a social catastrophe, or at the very least destroy more lives than we necessary, both literally and through the gradual descent into madness those near the event are likely to have experienced. All of this sits at the heart of The Pledge, a film that is worth every moment of our time.