Promise at Dawn

Promise at Dawn (La Promesse de l'aube, 2017) is a sweeping biographical drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Eric Barbier. It tells the life of novelist Romain Gary through one overwhelming bond — his mother's. Raising him alone, Nina insists from his earliest years that her boy will become a hero, a diplomat, a great writer.

From a poor Polish town, mother and son make their way to Nice, then the boy heads to Paris to study and on to war as a fighter pilot. Charlotte Gainsbourg plays Nina as a woman whose faith in her son borders on tyranny — smothering him with love while forging someone capable of the impossible. Pierre Niney carries Gary from an awkward youth into an officer writing letters home from the front, unaware of the full truth waiting there.

The film adapts Gary's own memoir; he remains the only writer to win France's Goncourt Prize twice, the second time under a false name. This isn't a movie about heroics so much as the debt a child owes a parent who loves too fiercely. If you go for grand French family dramas, it's worth your evening. Stream Promise at Dawn (2017) online on iFILM.