Promised Hearts Review
Director: Anggi Umbara
Date Created: 2025-03-31 16:35
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Promised Hearts Review: The newest Indonesian Netflix film Setetes Embun Cinta Niyala is directed by Anggi Umbara and written by Written by Oka Aurora dan Habiburrahman El Shirazy and stars Beby Tsabina, Deva Mahenra, Dito Darmawan, Caitlin Halderman, Imran Ismail, Vonny Anggraini, Kiki Narendra, Ayez Kassar, and others. The film follows the story of Niyala, a beautiful young woman who works hard to finally become a doctor, but things take a turning point for the worse as her father forces her into an arranged marriage to Roger, who is a high-status man and the son of a rich businessman.
To make matters worse, her childhood sweetheart, Faik, has moved on to marry someone else. Niyala is torn and feels trapped — responsibilities of love, duty and family expectations have turned what seems impossible into her new reality in which she has less and less control of her own future.
Promised Hearts Review
The whole problem of choosing between love and responsibility is such an emotional one if the characters and the struggles are real. But in Netflix’s Promised Hearts, it all seems a bit contrived. Certainly Niyala’s plight is sad, but how the movie presents it didn’t make me feel any connection to her. It was as though the film expected me to tear up, but rather than build emotions naturally, it pushed these heavy, dramatic moments onto me like a series of cold-can-you-believe-this moments.
A major drawback is that the story is predictable. The arranged marriage plot has gotten a workout, and this movie doesn’t do anything that makes it fresh. I kept hoping something surprising would happen, and it just took the traditional route. There was nothing in the story that made me go, “Wow, I didn’t see that coming!”
There were a lot of things that I was confused about but one that really bugs me was the random crime and politics element of the movie. It just felt like the film didn’t know if it wanted to be a romance or something else completely. Had the story simply cantered on Niyala’s personal struggle — and its impact on her relationships — it would be far more powerful. Instead, it adds villains who are cartoonish and superfluous. It just made everything seem so messy.
A romance well told doesn’t require unnecessary distractions. The inner turmoil between Niyala, Roger, and Faik could have sustained the movie. But instead of allowing us to really feel the burden of Niyala’s decisions, the film keeps piling on superfluous theatricality that does little to enhance the narrative.
Sure, I am sure Beby Tsabina, Deva Mahenra and Dito Darmawan are great actors, and they might have thousands of fans behind, and they all deserve each of these fans. But in this movie, their performances weren’t really that great. That’s not entirely their fault — when the script isn’t strong, even the best actors can falter. The conversations seemed forced, and the characters’ responses to circumstances simply were not believable. I wanted to feel their pain and there were moments where I felt like I could, but their struggle didn’t quite reach me.”
There were also a few too many scenes where characters gazed dramatically into the distance. You know those clips of people looking all deep in thought by the ocean, set to sad music? That’s a frequent occurrence in this movie. It felt redundant, a little bit lazy. Rather than letting their characters express their feelings through conversation or impactful scenes, the movie constantly turned to these mind-numbing ‘dramatic’ landscapes.
This movie is different from other romances in that it has a strong faith focus. It’s not just a love story — it’s also a conversation, albeit a lengthy one, about religion, prayers and destiny. And that’s completely fine! If done well, faith-based movies can pack a real punch.
But in Promised Hearts, a lesson about love sometimes seems to be hammered into us too often. The movie constantly reminds us of it in dialogue and scenes instead of letting faith take the natural course of its characters. It’s as though the movie really, really wants to hammer home the idea that faith matters here. I appreciate the message, but it feels like it was just shoehorned into the plot.
Summing Up
Indonesian cinema has some awesome movies from before as well, so I know it can do better than this. I just wish Promised Hearts had pushed a little more and given us a story that felt as emotional as it intended to be. The story itself was good, but it fell short for me because of the terrible writing, unnecessary subplots, and lack of emotional depth.
The Indonesian movie Promised Hearts is now streaming on Netflix.
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