The Painted Veil Theatre Release Review

Bottom-Line: With its sweeping vistas of the Chinese countryside and superb leading performances, The Painted Veil is well worth a look.

The Painted Veil is actually the third film version of author Somerset Maughm's 1925 novel.  This remake is directed by John Curran (We Don't Live Here Anymore)-is ripe with stunning Chinese locales and rich performances by Ms. Watts and Mr. Norton. 

Edward Norton portrays Walter Fane, a proper English doctor living and working in 1925 pre-WWII China at a time when the sun never set on the British Empire.  He travels to London and meets Kitty (Watts) whom he immediately falls in love with, marries and whisks back to Shanghais, where he studies infectious deceases. 

But Kitty, who doesn't love Walter, grows bored and lonely, and falls in with the local (married) playboy Charlie Townsend (Liev Schreiber).  They have an affair; Walter finds out and threatens to divorce Kitty unless she accompanies him to an area in central China where a cholera outbreak is underway.  Kitty runs to Charlie for salvation, but he rejects her, and so she goes with Walter.             

My Viewpoint

I have never read the novel this movie is based on so I come to the film with a fresh set of eyes and thoughts not muddled, if you will, by the writing.  Even so I could pretty much chart the course The Painted Veil would take throughout its (2) hour length.  I have sat through far too many films like this one not to know the outcome, but it was entertaining watching Norton and Watts-with an assist by a cadre of fine Chinese actors-take me there. 

With its sweeping vistas of the Chinese countryside and superb leading performances, The Painted Veil is well worth a look, but don't be surprised if you have seen this story somewhere before.