Eastern Promises (2007)

Eastern Promises is a 2007 gangster crime thriller film directed by David Cronenberg and written by Steven Knight. Starring Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel, and Armin Mueller-Stahl, the film follows Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts), a Russian-British midwife who delivers the baby daughter of a drug-addicted 14-year-old Russian prostitute named Tatiana. After Tatiana dies in childbirth, Anna reads the girl's diary and discovers that she was trafficked by the Russian Mafia in London. When Semyon (Mueller-Stahl), the leader of the mobsters and the owner of the Trans-Siberian Restaurant, threatens the baby's life, Anna is warned off by both his immature son, Kirill (Cassel), and his menacing bodyguard and driver, Nikolai Luzhin (Mortensen).

Principal photography began in London on November 19, 2006, and concluded on February 16, 2007. The film has been noted for its treatment of the subject of sex trafficking, and for its violence and realistic depiction of Russian career criminals, which includes the detailed portrayal of the tattoos which indicate their crimes and criminal status.

Eastern Promises premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2007, where it won the People's Choice Award. The film was theatrically released in the United States and Canada on September 14, 2007, to critical acclaim, with particular praise for the performances of the cast. It was also a modest success at the box office, grossing $56.1 million against its $27 million production budget. Mortensen received numerous accolades for his performance, winning the Satellite Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama, the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actor, and the Saturn Award for Best Actor.