Irena’s Vow
Louise Archambault’s true story of a Polish nurse helping Jews to escape the Nazis is better acted than it is scripted.
Sophie Nélisse as Irena
Image courtesy of Quiver Distribution.
When I first heard of this film, a co-production between Canada and Poland, my expectations were not high. It is based on a true story set in Poland during the Second World War and, while it was indeed shot in Poland, most of the dialogue in it is in English. Furthermore, the leading role of the Polish nurse Irena Gut is played by a Canadian actress, Sophie Nélisse, the other central role, that of the SS major Eduard Rügemer, is taken by the Scottish actor Dougray Scott and the two most significant supporting roles, both German, are in the hands of Polish players. However good the intentions, this kind of mix all too often fails to attain any real sense of authenticity and using English to gain wide distribution comes at a severe cost to credibility. However, despite my fears, Irena’s Vow greatly helped by the well-judged performances comes closer to success in this respect than I would have dared to hope and it is something else entirely that jeopardises the success of the film.
Irena Gut was only seventeen or so when in 1939 her country was invaded and she found herself forced to work for the Germans in a factory. In time but still under the command of Major Rügemer she was switched to kitchen duties in the same establishment and found that her job included feeding a group of Jews who claimed to have tailoring skills and were employed in the laundry there. When Irena became a witness to the kind of violence perpetrated by the Nazis in the streets, she as a good Catholic made a vow to help those whose lives were endangered and established a rapport with the Jews in the laundry. Indeed, once she became aware of what the Germans were planning to do to the Jews in the area, she determined to hide the twelve laundry workers and came up with an extraordinary plan. Just at this time Major Rügemer was moving into a villa in the area and told Irena that her work would be switched again and that this time she would take on the role of his housekeeper. What Irena proposed - and then carried out - was to transfer the Jewish workers to the villa where they would be hidden under the very nose of the Major who thought that he was occupying the property alone save for Irena.
Doing this was, of course, incredibly risky and made for a real-life tale that in fiction would have seemed absurdly far-fetched. Irena's Vow goes on to reveal the various dangers encountered leading eventually to a success against the odds. This film is indeed a tribute to a brave young woman who would ultimately gain recognition for the lives she saved. As such, it is certainly a tale worth the telling and all the more so because Irena Gut’s story is less widely known than it deserves to be. It is also a story that usefully contains a range of German characters to add to our interest. There is one extreme Nazi who features strongly – Rokita played by Maciej Nawrocki – but we have too a well-judged portrayal of a sympathetic German, Schultz (Andrzej Seweryn). He is employed as butler to Major Rügemer and from the outset he is concerned over Irena’s position. He seeks to offer her some consolation but recognises that in order to survive you have to tread carefully and advises her to act accordingly. Even more central, of course, is the Major himself a complex figure well realised by Dougray Scott as a man who is certainly part of the SS but whose heart is not fully in it. As for Irena herself, Sophie Nélisse, who made her debut in Monsieur Lazhar in 2011 but whose subsequent work has not reached us in the UK, proves to have an intensely sympathetic personality that is ideal for this role.
All of these elements together with the location photography help to make Irena’s Vow an appealing work and one which the Canadian director Louise Archambault handles with technical skill even if the running time (121 minutes) comes to feel somewhat over-extended in the later stages. However, the good work is for me undermined by Dan Gordon’s screenplay which is based on his own theatre piece. He is adroit at hiding the stage origin but again and again he creates scenes which, while based on fact, are dramatised in ways that makes them feel larger than life. At first it is little details that fail to convince but that grows into moments which feel heightened to attain extra drama until a key moment in the tale is reached which quite lacks conviction (this is entirely due to the writing and not to the acting). It is undoubtedly the case that some audiences are more easily persuaded to suspend disbelief than others and it may well be that the good things here will encourage many viewers to disregard the number of times when an essentially true story is allowed to feel untrue. That the problem exists is in my eyes a pity since the story of Irena Gut deserved being told on film. Nevertheless, Irena’s Vow does work for some as is proved by the fact that the film has won three audience awards and in addition – ironically in my view – has also achieved a win for Dan Gordon as its writer.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Sophie Nélisse, Dougray Scott, Andrzrej Seweryn, Maciej Nawrocki, Sharon Azrieli, Eliza Rycembel, Aleksandar Milicevic, Krzysztof Szczepaniak, Irena Melcer, Agata Turkot, Filip Kosior, Eryk Kulm.
Dir Louise Archambault, Pro Beata Pisula, Nicholas Tabarrok, Tim Ringuette, Berry Meyerowitz and Jeff Sackman, Screenplay Dan Gordon, from his stage play, Ph Paul Sarossy, Pro Des Joanna Bialousz, Ed Arthur Tarnowski, Music Maxime Navert and Alexandra Stréliski Costumes Malgorzata Zacharska.
Darius Films/K&K Selekt/ Entract Studios/Téléfilm Canada/Filmoteka Narodawa - Institut Audiowizualny/Telewizja Polska-Quiver Distribution.
121 mins. Canada/Poland. 2023. US Rel: 15 April 2024. UK Rel: 28 March 2025. Cert. 18+.
