The Painted Veil
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Movie Reviews of The Painted Veil
Movie Review: "Does anyone really fall in love with virtue?" says Kitty...
Summary: 5 Stars
It's very unusual, these days, to see a husband and wife, seemingly "mismatched," grow through marriage into a true and deep love for one another. Kitty is self-absorbed and pleasure-seeking, Walter is serious, oriented toward research and service. Bound to fail, right? Eharmony would never pair these two...and some marriage counselors would say, "Forget it."
Others have described the plot very well, I won't repeat it here. It's easy to downgrade Kitty, she marries for all the wrong reasons...but she's right that virtuous guys can sometimes be boring. Edward Norton does a fantastic job of portraying the intellectual loner who is originally spellbound by Kitty...so spellbound that he doesn't really relate to her as she is...she is almost an object of worship to him. Naturally this fails to awaken her passion. Not that I am meaning to excuse her, just to say that there is room for growth in BOTH people in this movie. When he is cuckolded, Walter reacts by retreating into rigid rectitude...but we always know that he still loves Kitty, even though he is terribly hurt and cannot believe that she will ever change. When they begin to open up to each other again, Walter is transformed as well, moving beyond his initial one-dimensional view of Kitty to accept her as a person that he can respect, even though she is still the lighthearted musician who plays for the orphans to dance. He is more of a man, and she has grown into womanhood by falling in love with his virtue...not just any virtue, but HIS.
It's a fine movie. Not slow, unless you have no taste for nuance and beauty. Waddington and his Chinese girlfriend are a sort of Mozartian parallel couple (Papageno/Papagena) to Walter and Kitty (Tamino/Pamina). It is clear from the brief focus on the girlfriend that she truly loves Waddington. Kitty's realization of this is a turning point, and this scene is masterfully acted by all.
On top of all that, the music, from French folk song to Satie, is used with perfect appropriateness to the action. The ending is realistic and perfectly satisfying, even though not "happy" in the traditional sense. 5 stars, you bet!
Movie Review: Now, what was the painted veil in the movie?
Summary: 5 Stars
Watched this one all impressed by superior acting of the two stars, but really it's hard to imagine why they decided to make this particular story, it's so old fashioned and after awhile you have to ask yourself, are we supposed to admire these British people, their position in China seems anomalous and just plain wrong, I found myself cheering when the Chinese youths decided to menace Naomi Watts and knocked her out of her howdah in the crowded alleys of the town. Maybe that's mean spirited of me, but then again the film seems to recognize the problems of its raison d'etre on more than one occasion. Kitty Fane (Naomi Watts) comes home all thrilled by the good charitable work Diana Rigg and the other nuns are doing, but Walter (Ed Norton) sets her straight with a grim, they're stealing babies to turn them into Catholics. You can see that Kitty doesn't think that such a bad idea after all. Then there's the pre-teen Chinese orphan who refuses to answer to her Western name. Good for her! And what about that Chinese attache general or whatever he was, could they have picked someone who looks less Asian? Love to see an Eastern telling of THE PAINTED VEIL, I guess the Ron Howard movie of a few years back, GUNG HO, would be the nearest equivalent.
But whatever qualms I have about the movie, Watts and Norton are fantastic, and in Norton's marvelous nude scene there's one trick I never thought I'd see captured on film. He's waking up having made love to his wife after many years of treating her coldly, and he's trying to sneak out of her bedroom without waking her, and we see him retreating away from the camera and then Watts speaks, startling him to such a degree we see him freeze and yet his buttocks quiver, delicately, magnificently. Was this CGI or just more of that Oscar worthy Norton total command of the body? Whatever it is, he should do it in every movie and perhaps on one of those old fashioned whistle-stop trains that used to bring politicans to every city in the nation, and he could step out on a bunting-lined caboose at every stop and show the folks what fine acting is really all about.
Movie Review: A loveless marriage and a Cholera epidemic in 1925 China
Summary: 5 Stars
This 2006 film is the third movie adaptation of the 1925 novel by Somerset Maugham. The film brings us back to that time and place where Brits were considered the good guys when they moved to China and tried to help the people. It brought me right there too, being carried in a sedan chair, feeling the heat and the dust and the basic "foreignness" of China for the British characters.
Naomi Watts is cast in the role of a spoiled upper-class young woman who is pressured into marrying Edward Norton, a do-gooder British bacteriologist who lives in Shanghai and is looking for a bride. He plays the role as a well-meaning, but uptight and stuffy man without an ounce of romantic appeal. Not surprisingly, his bride is soon having an affair with Liev Schreiber, a businessman and diplomat married to a very socially prominent woman. When Norton finds out about the affair, he is furious, and, as Liev Schreiber has no intention of leaving his wife, Watts is forced to go with her husband to the interior of China where there is a raging Cholera epidemic.
Against the backdrop of this serious disease which is ravaging the countryside, this marriage is displayed with all its faults. Watts hates her husband who is doing his best to help the people who don't understand why he denies them their water supply or why he insists that the dead must be buried immediately. Norton works day and night to help the people, even creating an irrigation system and making peace with the local warlord. Watts starts to work in an orphanage run by nuns and she begins to soften towards her husband. Eventually, they fall in love and there seems to be happiness in spite of all the disease around them as well as lots of anti-British feelings. Then tragedy strikes.
I loved this film. I thought the acting was outstanding. I felt the reality of the China that Somerset Maugham described in 1925. And I really related to the story. This film did not get very good reviews when it came out. It was thought to be too old fashioned for a modern audience. To me, however, this film was first rate.
Movie Review: Sin, Punishment & Redemption!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great film which carries the faith and efforts from the director and main artists: John Curran, director, Ron Nyswaner , screenplay writer, Naomi Watts and Edward Norton actors are at the same time co-producers of the film.
The story is as follows: in mid `20s an upper-class aging young woman is pressed by her family to get married. Dr. Fane MD and microbiologist press his luck, propose and marry Kitty taking her to Shanghai, where the couple finds they are deeply different.
Boredom and loneliness throws Kitty into the arms of Charlie Townsend, who is, unknown to her, a womanizer. Dr. Fane discovers her infidelity and plans a dreadful revenge. He applies to go into succor of a backwater village harassed by cholera epidemic and drags Kitty with him into a nearly suicide mission.
Subject to extreme conditions, poverty, political and cultural pressures and loneliness, the couple starts to alchemize their relationship.
The film chronicles these events delivering a gripping and endearing human story.
Main actress and actors in the film perform greatly.
Naomi Watts, as Kitty, gives a performance full of subtleties, showing the evolution of a spoiled and bored woman into a compromised and compassionate Samaritan.
Edward Norton, as Dr. Fane, is able to express and transmit the inner turmoil of an obsessive scientist confronted with unexpected marital issues. This was a great year for Norton who has delivered another great performance as the main male character of "The Illusionist".
Toby Jones, as Waddington, a stranded British neighbor gives a very good acting piece.
Nevertheless these are not the only high points of the film; adaptation of Somerset Maugham's novel done by Ron Nyswaner is paramount; musical score from French composer Alexandre Desplat subtly underline different scenes and finally cinematography in charge of Englishman Stuart Dryburgh is excellent.
This picture is tasty dish for movie fans. Enjoy!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
Movie Review: 'Painted Veil' Is Beautiful
Summary: 5 Stars
Co-produced and co-starring Naomi Watts and Edward Norton, W. Somerset Maugham's novel comes to life in living color. Beautiful cinematography and symphonic music embellish a wonderful, heart-warming story of love and forgiveness.
Kitty (Watts) is getting older. Living in 1920's London, her parents have more to say with impunity about her suitors. Quick to pursue her, Walter Fane (Norton) pushes himself for courtship against her wishes, but the timing leaves her no choice but wedlock. Interrupted in their social life, they become a foursome with Charlie Townsend (Liev Schreiber) and his wife. Charlie, a virile alternative to her drab, doctor husband, tempts her into adultery. In such an arrangement, women didn't have the freedoms they do now. So when Walter is assigned to treat a cholera epidemic in Shanghai, he's privy to her affair and can blackmail her to come along or face the scorn of divorce. Since her lover is a playboy who abhors attachment anyway, she again has no choice.
Life in China at first offers nothing more than disease and disenchantment. Bored with her life and keeping in seclusion to avoid cholera, her husband spreads nothing but flinty resentment toward her unfaithful presence. Besides a stunning landscape, she discovers a convent where a wise, old mother superior charms her heart and inspires her to do at first repellant work with the orphans. Besides the dangers of disease, the locals are slow to warm up to any foreigner's presence, even one that may offer a solution to their health crisis.
More moving than its beautiful cinematography, Norton's and Watt's splendid performances work well with a captivating story of lust and love, betrayal and forgiveness, and selfishness turned to self-giving. While some viewers may find some of the old-fashioned elements of the film languorous in places, I feel the picture clocks in just right for the state of affairs. Superbly crafted, 'Painted Veil' is complete with a heart-melting beauty for the soul as well as for the eyes.