The Painted Veil
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Movie Reviews of The Painted Veil
Movie Review: I Think Somerset Maugham Would Have Enjoyed This Immensely
Summary: 5 Stars
Visually The Painted Veil is an inspiringly beautiful film start to finish. Adapted from Somerset Maugham's 1925 novel and starring Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, and a bravely makeup-eschewing Diana Rigg, The Painted Veil tells us of Walter Fane, a young doctor (so many of Maugham's characters were doctors) who falls in love with Kitty Garstin, a beautiful woman from a moneyed family, who impulsively weds the doctor in order to both escape and punish her callous mother. Soon finding herself re-located along with her husband to Shanghai, Kitty is stranded on the far side of the world amid unfamiliar people and places, married to a man she does not love and with whom she has virtually nothing in common. In the wake of his wife's eventual affair with a caddish playboy, Dr. Fane forces Kitty to move with him once more, this time into the primitive countryside of the Chinese interior, where a cholera epidemic is taking human life in appalling numbers long unseen back in Europe. Where once he had been filled with passionate love for Kitty, Walter now hates himself for ever loving her, and treats Kitty with punitive coldness and disdain. Isolated, facing horrors nothing in either of their pasts has prepared them for, the couple enter an existence which tries the human spirit, and recreates each of them into something greater than either could once ever have been. Maugham's story of romantic love, betrayal, redemption and higher love is magnificently unfolded here in one of the more worthwhile novel-to-screen productions of the decade. The Painted Veil is a twenty-first-century masterpiece.Movie Review: an underated gem of a film
Summary: 5 Stars
if released in a diffrent year, The Painted Veil wouldn't have gone so under the radar in the oscar race. with beautiful cinamatograpy, superb acting, and a down to basics love story it has all the makings of a classic film. its 1925 and young Kitty is pressured by her mother to get married. in her search, she settles on the shy Walter Fane, a bacteriologist. as soon as they are married, he moves her to Shanghai were Kitty instantly becomes bored with her life and begins an adulurous affair with british diplomat Charles. eventually, Walter figures out about the affair and offers her an ultimatum, either acompiny him to cholera ridden Chine countryside or he divorces her. as they take a life up in the mountains of rural China, both Kitty and Walter go threw changes and eventually the bond between them slowly turns to true love. some people have complained the film moves at a slow pace but that is the whole point of the film, to show just how distant these two are and how slow time feels when they aren't together. as i said before, all the acting is superb. if given a diffrent year, Watts, Norton, Jones, and Rigg would all be nominated. Watts is brilliant as the lonely and frail Kitty while Norton gives one of his best performances since American History X. Jones is also great as Kitty and Walters neighboor while Rigg gives a witty but firm portrayl as the Mother Superior. it was such a shame this film didn't get the attention it rightfully deserved but that dosen't stop it from being one of the most pleasent and subtle films of the year.Movie Review: Just Beautiful.
Summary: 5 Stars
Beautiful.
Basic Plot: Young and plain in social standing but endowed with beauty, Kitty marries Dr. Walter, a shy and reserved bacteriologist who adores Kitty but does not have the personality to show it. Driven by boredom and a loveless marriage - loveless on Kitty's part - she commits adultery with a charming diplomat. With the discovery of his wife's adultery Dr. Walter takes his unwilling wife to the central part of the deadly cholera epidemic. And there the love story begins.
This movie is one of the few recent movies that I saw that did not disappoint my expectations. I believe that a `true' love story - love stories that are not only trying to be cute but really portray the love that we experience in real life - should reflect realities honestly and accurately. And this I believe cannot be accomplished merely by good acting and directing but with the right team. Norton and Watts was such a team.
The choice of the backdrop of this love story could not have been more odd - a cholera infested China town. But their love was like a rose in the middle of a plant-less, muddy swamp. Because the movie paints such a picture, the love story seems even more beautiful. But that is not all. Although this is a love story, the story honors the scare of the cholera outbreak and the ghostly atmosphere of the town. This authentic scenery is disturbing but elevates the level of the movie.
This is one of my favorite love stories in recent films.
Movie Review: A grown up love story
Summary: 5 Stars
I see this film as a love story, and probably one of the most complicated, realistic and poignant ones I've seen in a while. Instead of two characters who meet, fall in love, and live happily ever after, Kitty and Walter take a much more difficult journey.
Aging playgirl Kitty (Naomi Watts) and nerdy doctor Walter (Edward Norton) marry for all the wrong reasons. Walter's feelings for Kitty are based more on infatuation then on genuine love and respect, and Kitty simply seems to see Walter as a way to escape her family and avoid becoming a spinster. After Kitty has an affair, Walter makes an ultimatum that destroy's Kitty's relationship with her lover, and sends them both to rural China on a mission that is likely to cause one or both of them to die of cholera. The two characters are both so hopelessly disillusioned and depressed at that point that neither seems to care.
Strangely, what is meant to be a bitter ending transforms into a hopeful beginning. Isolated and living in miserable conditions, Kitty and Walter are somehow able to find a sense of purpose and a true appreciation for one another. It's as if the characters first have to despise one another for who they are not before they can love each other for who they are.
"The Painted Veil" is a literate, sophisticated love story for adults, that features beautiful cinematography and wonderful performances by two of the best lead actors in film today.
Movie Review: Treacherous Landscape
Summary: 5 Stars
Years ago, I traveled in China and fell in love with her people and landscape. The Chinese setting, as well as the acting of Edward Norton (one of my generation's finest), led to my viewing of "The Painted Veil." I knew nothing of the story and came into it with no expectations.
The film starts with a marriage of expedience between a quiet, intelligent bacteriologist (Norton) and a British sophisticate (Naomi Watts), who wants to escape the clutches of her overbearing family. Norton's Dr. Fane leads Watts' Kitty to Shanghai, where Kitty slumps into a life of loneliness and self-absorption. The end result is an affair with another civil servant. But Dr. Fane is well aware of his wife's dalliances, eventually presenting her with a double-edged choice.
Kitty's self-made prison and Dr. Fane's equally imprisoning lack of forgiveness land the unloving couple in the middle of a cholera epidemic in a remote Chinese district. Through their duty to the sick, they come to truce of sorts, which evolves into unexpected grace.
With beautiful cinematography as a background for the subtle brilliance of Watts and Norton, "The Painted Veil" drew me slowly, quietly into its story. It moved me to tears. It made me laugh. And it served as a reminder of the core values which can serve as a foundation for any great work--whether it be in an orphanage, a hospital, a foreign country, or in the treacherous landscape of marriage.