PLOT: Based on the W. Somerset Maugham novel, only cheerier. When he finds his wife is having an affair, a doctor forces her to accompany him to a remote village in China during a cholera epidemic. There, they rediscover love for one another, but fate has other plans.
The Painted Veil is a sweeping melodrama with beautiful scenery and nothing to offend your old granny, should you choose to bring her along. These are not elements we'd necessarily look for in a movie, but there are worse things.
Edward Norton and Naomi Watts star in The Painted Veil as a couple who have married for all the wrong reasons. It opens in theatres today.
The story is set in the 1920s. Watts plays Kitty, a shallow, upwardly mobile young woman who marries Walter Fane, a doctor working in China, because she feels she's run out of options.
On his side, Walter Fane seems to be very much in love with Kitty. Since we see him initially only through her eyes, Walter appears meek and ineffectual.
Walter and Kitty relocate to Shanghai, where Kitty has an affair with one Charlie Townsend (Liev Schreiber). Walter finds out and comes up with a unique solution: He decides to go into a remote, cholera-ravaged village and volunteer his services, and he forces Kitty to come with him.
In the village of Mei-tan-fu, Kitty and Walter continue the stand-off. She makes friends with British Deputy Commissioner Waddington (Toby Jones) and volunteers to work with orphans for lack of anything else to do.
Walter works with the children, too, and with the sick, and as time passes he and Kitty forgive each other and begin their relationship anew. Things change, and when fate intervenes, things change again.
The Painted Veil was filmed in parts of China rarely seen on the big screen, and in general, it has plenty of sweeping landscapes on offer. The film is a treat for the eyes, and for the ears, too, as it's based on the Somerset Maugham novel; here, the English language is used as a thing of beauty rather than a blunt object.
Further on the plus side, The Painted Veil has an interesting political element that reflects contemporary issues -- it's set in 1925 just after the events of May 30, when British troops shot and killed Chinese demonstrators during a rally in Shanghai.
Hostility toward foreigners raged through China, a fact that further isolates and endangers Kitty and Walter and may also remind you of current American status abroad.
At any rate, it's not all good news about The Painted Veil.
There's something missing at the heart of the film, some spark, and it may be nothing more than a lack of chemistry between Norton and Watts.
Certainly, whenever Toby Jones or Diana Rigg (as Mother Superior) or someone else interacts with either lead character, things seem to pick up at once.
Funny how that goes.
BOTTOM LINE: If you were cooking this thing instead of watching it, you'd want to add plenty of garlic and a big dollop of hot sauce. It's bland, overall.
(This film is rated PG)
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