Warner Independent Pictures

Principle Actors: Naomi Watts,

Website:

wip.warnerbros.com/paintedveil/

5 Stars/5 Stars

Reviewed By: Breanne Cursley

When I looked at the cover of The Painted Veil I wasn’t sure what to expect. Was it just another sappy romance, or a drama trying desperately to make it to the Oscars? But after hitting the play button and watching 2 hours of this charming and heartbreaking film I was completely and utterly satisfied. Delivered to the audience through tremendous performances by both the leading and supporting roles The Painted Veil is the perfect movie for a date, a girls’ night out or just a movie to snuggle up and watch alone.

The film follows Dr. Walter Fane (Edward Norton), a bacteriologist who falls desperately in love with Kitty (Naomi Watts), who doesn’t return his affections. Despite the one-sided love Walter asks for Kitty’s hand in marriage, and she accepts only to get away from her mother, who is very persistent that Kitty marries soon, before it is too late. After they wed they move to Shanghai, where Walter works in a government laboratory. In Shanghai the couple makes an acquaintance with Charles Townsend (Live Schreiber) and before long Kitty in committing adultery with him, and falling in love. It isn’t long after that Walter discovers the affair and, in an attempt to separate Charles and Kitty, volunteers to move to a remote village in China infected by a cholera epidemic, hoping to find the source of the horrible disease and terminate the outbreak. Despite Kitty’s evident unwillingness to go towards a pit of inevitable death, the two make a journey to the village and begin living amongst the constant threat of cholera. It isn’t long after being there that they meet Waddington (Tony Jones), their neighbour and befriend him. Over the months of living amidst the desolate and morbid landscape Kitty and Walter rediscover each other and this is where the film’s tagline holds true – “Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people.

Most intriguing about The Painted Veil, is that we are seeing a love story in reverse. Charles demanding an almost masochistic act and displaced loyalty from Kitty is an impassioned, subversive and angry plea. Yet the complexity of the characters and the relationship allows for the audience to feel both angry and forgiving of both characters deplorable actions, at any given point. An excellently planned and executed storyline by both the original author William Somerset Maugham that the film was adapted from, the screenwriters, the director and the actors; all involved realized they were making something unique, complex and special. It is easy to see why Ed Norton and Naomi Watts produced this gem.

Something that really added to this movie was the spectacular scenery that it is set in. Each shot depicts some aspect of the beautiful surroundings in China, with lush green landscape and vast shots of the river that flows through the village where Kitty and Walter are living. The setting affected the way I saw the film because at the beginning much of the clothing of the actors and the background was a beige colour, which was rather dull – and so was Kitty and Walter’s relationship, but as the movie progresses and the characters develop the costumes and background become full of rich colour, their relationship becomes more rich and in depth as well. This was a clever move on the director’s part, as it really enhanced the whole experience of the film. Looking back at The Painted Veil I see a flawless, well directed, well acted and compassionate love story. I couldn’t suggest any improvements to better the movie and I’m sure others would agree with me that it is definitely a movie you could enjoy over and over again.