Advocacy Wrapped in a Familiar Thriller

Read Time:5 Minute, 34 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Deadly Vows
–

Genre: Thriller, Crime, Drama
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 38m
Director(s): Jared Cohn, Bella Bahar Danesh
Writer(s): Sofia Monzerratt, Georgia Menides, Niall Cassin, Josh Ridgway, Bella Bahar Danesh
Cast: Shiva Negar, Peter Facinelli, Billy Zane, Shane West, Shohreh Aghdashloo
Where to Watch: releasing on November 14, 2025

RAVING REVIEW: Some films carry a responsibility greater than entertainment, and DEADLY VOWS clearly shoulders that weight. The filmmakers set out to tell a story rooted in real trauma and survival — a young woman escaping violence and control in hopes of a safer future. That kind of material demands care, focus, and authenticity. It’s why the film’s strongest asset is its intent — it aims to shed light on domestic abuse, amplify a survivor’s journey, and align itself with real-world advocacy. There is a genuine mission behind the movie. You can sense that everyone involved wants to acknowledge a harsh truth. But the execution constantly works against itself.

Shiva Negar plays Darya, a character whose resilience should be the emotional core of every frame. She is a refugee escaping one danger only to fall into another — a storyline with built-in terror, heartbreak, and dramatic urgency. And when the film slows down long enough to let her simply be — afraid, angry, determined, conflicted — Negar rises to the moment. There are glimpses of nuance in how she tries to rebuild herself while looking over her shoulder.

Those glimpses, however, are often obscured by layers of thriller conventions that come from a different movie. Instead of investing in the disordered internal reality of a survivor, the script leans on shortcuts: explosive confrontations, dramatic stalker shots, last-minute rescues, and characters who exist mainly to deliver plot-moving dialogue. It becomes a predictable series of moments rather than an escalating psychological fight for freedom.

This is especially disappointing because the casting suggests a film ready to dig deeper. Shohreh Aghdashloo brings wisdom and gravity the second she appears. You can feel years of experience in every glance, making you wish the film allowed her to shape the narrative more meaningfully. Peter Facinelli is solid as a charming man whose darkness emerges gradually, but the transformation happens too quickly. Shane West and Billy Zane appear capable of giving this story sharper edges, but instead they’re slotted into roles that rarely expand beyond function. A consistent tension haunts the filmmaking: Is this a character study or a standard thriller? The film never fully commits to either.

On one side, it wants to raise awareness, positioning domestic violence as a real danger that often continues even after a survivor escapes. Those themes are essential, and giving audiences visibility into a situation many endure silently is undeniably worthwhile. On the other side, the movie wants momentum — it wants close calls, big twists, and a neatly packaged moral victory. Those impulses don’t mix. Each time the story veers toward honesty, the editing yanks it back into a structure that demands it feel exciting instead of uncomfortably real.

The cinematography and pacing reinforce that struggle. There are sequences shot with urgency and style, but the visual storytelling doesn’t always match the emotional one. Moments that should devastate resolve too quickly. The narrative jumps forward before Darya or the viewer can fully absorb the consequences of what has just happened. The trauma becomes part of a checklist rather than a journey. As a result, the film leaves an impact on the table — the very thing its message depends on.

What ultimately holds DEADLY VOWS back is its reluctance to let its characters take the lead in the story. Darya’s trauma becomes a push for progression rather than a human experience that defines her choices. For a film built on truth, that distance feels like a betrayal of what’s most important. Audiences deserve to know what courage looks like — not just in the big escapes, but in the quiet moments of recovery that follow. There are hints of that film here, and those hints make the missed potential even louder.

DEADLY VOWS isn’t hollow. The mission behind it matters. Bringing conversations about domestic abuse into genre filmmaking is valuable — especially when the effort elevates survivors and encourages empathy rather than just delivering fear. When the film sticks to that purpose, it feels like something vital is happening. The problem is that those moments are too few and too spread out to define the experience.

This lands in that difficult territory where you want to support the creators for what they’re trying to do — and you wish the final product would let them achieve it to the fullest. The performances hint at a better movie. The message deserves a better movie. What we get is a watchable but uneven thriller that raises awareness without leaving the deeper emotional bruise that could have made it unforgettable.

DEADLY VOWS cares about its subject — and that matters — but caring is only the first step. It took courage to slow down, to trust the weight of its own truth, and to let the survivor’s voice guide every frame, rather than chasing the familiarity of suspense storytelling. At the end of the day, it’s a film that means well and tries hard — and sometimes that sincerity is enough to earn just a little grace, even when the result struggles to honor its potential fully.

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