‘Promise, I’ll Be Fine’ Review: Lived-in Authenticity Boosts an Otherwise Familiar Slovakian Coming-Of-Age Tale

Teenagers will inevitably be teenagers. That’s the timeless takeaway of Promise, I’ll Be Fine (Hore je nebo, v doline som ja), receiving its world premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Revolving around Eno (Michael Zachensky), a 15-year-old in rural Slovakia who learns some hard truths about his frequently absent mother, the affecting coming-of-age tale marks an auspicious feature debut for its filmmaker, Katarina Gramatova.

The drama — whose opening credits inform us was “Inspired by life in Slovakia’s ‘Hungry Valleys’” — doesn’t present a particularly idyllic portrait of its naturally beautiful but poverty-stricken setting. There, Eno and his three male friends engage in the sort of mindless time-killing escapades familiar to any teen.

They sit around eating pizza while making sarcastic comments about the village’s denizens, including the local drunk. They look at 3D photos of naked women on an old View-Master-type device. And they ride around endlessly on their mopeds, occasionally taking the sort of road trip that leads them to such thrilling destinations as a highway McDonald’s. The prospect of an upcoming bicycle race, complete with a cash prize, promises to inject their routine lives with at least some excitement.

Eno lives with his grandmother (Jana Olhova), who brooks little dissent and wastes no opportunity to remind him of the sacrifice she’s making. His mother (Eva Mores) is absent for long stretches at a time, working at some unspecified job in a more prosperous region. Though Eno is desperate to have a loving relationship with her, she constantly makes excuses about why she can’t see him more often — assuring him, “You have my word, I’ll be back before the end of the holidays.”

Eno’s fragile illusions are shattered when his friends taunt him, as teenagers are wont to do, telling him that his mother isn’t the virtuous woman he takes her to be and that she’s actually engaged in nefarious activities exploiting old people. Forced to turn to her for help when he crashes his moped and breaks its motor, he confronts her about the true nature of her activities when she finally stops by for a visit. The resulting encounter, in which his vulnerability and her deceits are laid bare, provides a quietly shattering climax.

Director-screenwriter Gramatova, working from an original story co-devised by producer Igor Engler, based this effort on her experiences making the short documentary A Good Mind Grows in Thorny Places in the mountain village of Utechka. Several of that film’s young subjects make their acting debuts here, and their naturalistic performances are truly impressive — especially that of Zachensky, whose brooding persona and James Dean-like handsomeness make him a natural camera subject. Professional actress Mores delivers a memorable turn as Eno’s mother, projecting a complex series of emotions in her relatively brief screen time and displaying the sort of fierce charisma that makes fully understandable both her son’s fixation on her and her skills at con artistry.  

Boasting the sort of lived-in authenticity that lends its familiar-feeling story an undeniable urgency, Promise, I’ll Be Fine should enjoy considerable success on the festival circuit and in international art houses.