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List Price: $27.95 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 2447
Released: May 8, 2007 |
| Our Price: $5.99 |
| Used Price: $3.75 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Based on the classic novel by W. Somerset Maugham, "The Painted Veil" is a love story set in the 1920s that tells the story of a young English couple, Walter, a middle class doctor and Kitty, an upper-class woman, who get married for the wrong reasons and relocate to Shanghai, where she falls in love with someone else. When he uncovers her infidelity, in an act of vengeance, he accepts a job in a remote village in China ravaged by a deadly epidemic, and takes her along. Their journey brings meaning to their relationship and gives them purpose in one of the most remote and beautiful places on earth.
Description of The Painted Veil:
Produced by Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, The Painted Veil works well as a movie--even better as an actor's showcase. The year is 1925. When her domineering mother pressures her to marry, Kitty (Watts) settles for shy bacteriologist Walter (Norton). Then Walter is transferred from London to Shanghai and the lonely and bored Kitty drifts into an affair with married diplomat Charlie (Liev Schreiber). When Walter finds out, he makes a startling proposition: either Kitty accompanies him to the cholera-infested countryside or he'll divorce her. With no other prospects, she comes along on what looks like a double-suicide mission. Based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil was adapted by Philadelphia's Ron Nyswaner (who knows a little something about infectious diseases). As two previous versions made little impact--despite Garbo's presence in the 1934 melodrama--John Curran's film is sure to stand as definitive. Interestingly, Norton, who studied Chinese history at Yale, chose Watts as his co-star, while Watts chose Curran, for whom she appeared in 2004's underrated We Don't Live Here Anymore. Filmed on location, the handsome production is, in many respects, just as old-fashioned as its source material--sex is merely suggested and Kitty is shocked that their English neighbor (Toby Jones) has a Chinese lover--but the ending packs a feminist twist. Mostly though, The Painted Veil is about the acting, and Watts and Norton, along with Diana Rigg as a disillusioned Mother Superior, have rarely been better. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
The Painted Veil Reviews:
Th ePainted Veil 
2009-10-24 - Very good movie!
The DVD case was broken and cracked when it arrived to my home.
Reading the Movie...
2009-09-28 - The melding of story, presentation by the Actors, all set in front of perfectly designed backgrounds (visuals) has made this film a regular re-watch on my personal favorites list. Not since the melodramas of the 40's has a film been able to pull me into the actual production. The Painted Veil was the emotional experience I usually have while reading a book, rather than watching a movie.
Excellent in every respect...
This movie didn't get the credit it deserves!
2009-09-09 - This is an absolutely stunning and beautiful movie. Just watched it on a premium channel and went straight to Amazon to buy it. Outstanding cast (Ed Norton should have received an Oscar), beautiful scenery, great music and a heart breaking love story. I wish they would make more movies like this one!
A story that stays with you long after viewing! 
2009-06-23 - The Painted Veil takes an adult look at marriage relationships without all the cynical man-bashing that one expects from a movie containing adultery and revenge. The melodrama is there, but it's done so quietly, the movie oozes maturity.
In the 1920's while still in London working as a bacteriologist- a less than glamorous career to be sure- Walter (Edward Norton) falls in love with Kitty (Naomi Watts), at first sight. Kitty, a member of the upper-class, spoiled and immature for all her "on the shelf" years, is less inclined regarding Walter. But in a fit of quiet rage against her cold mother, she accepts his proposal and moves with him to Shanghai where he has been transferred.
She quickly becomes bored with Shangai's society and is lured into an illicit relationship with another man, (played by Watts' real life lover Liev Schreiber).
When Walter learns of the affair, he takes matters into his own hands by giving her a choice: Either she goes with him into the interior of China where a cholera outbreak has occurred in a remote village or expect a rather messy divorce where the details of her infidelity will be made known to all. When Kitty's lover makes it painfully evident that he has no intention of leaving his own wife, and left with no other choice, she leaves with Walter to a life she never wanted. Right away Kitty realizes Walter is serious about punishing her, when he takes the more arduous route over land rather than by sea.
Once there, they find the village is remote, full of superstitious inhabitants afraid of and angry at the white foreigners taking over their country. Eventually, she decides to ignore the turmoil, because she's bored with sitting alone all day and then getting the cold shoulder every night. She ventures into town and ... for the first time in her life, starts down the path of selflessness.
What struck me from the beginning of the film was the fact that Norton was not playing the manly husband of every young woman's dreams as you might expect, but rather the dull scientist lost in his own little world of lab work and writing. It wasn't until his wife cheated that his character changed and grew. The nuances of the change struck me as one that could only be portrayed by a high-quality actor such as he, and definitely made the film better because of it.
Watt's character grew as well, but the fact that she never really portrayed Kitty as "rebellious" or "bratty", as Kitty was written to be, the changes feel less striking. In the end it just seemed to me that Kitty's character actually started matching Watt's portrayal from the beginning. This spoiled the movie for me. In contrast to Norton, I would have liked to see a less subtle portrayal on her part.
Still, the combined growth of Walter and Kitty is what makes the film interesting. In addition, it takes all the rules of romance and turns it on its ear, but does it so believably that I never minded it one bit. (If you are a romance writer looking for inspiration for a twist on the moldy plots out there now-a-days, this film is an excellent start.)
The cinematography for The Painted Veil is arresting. I believe the film was shot almost entirely on location and the beauty of the interior of China cannot be denied.
I'm giving this one a 4 out of 5-It hangs with you, that's for sure. (As I think about it almost nine months after seeing it, I can still recall the feeling of it.) I'll probably never watch it again, but I'm glad that I did- If for Edward Norton alone!
Relationship Need Fixing? 
2009-05-24 - Take your spouse into a cholera epidemic. That seems to be part of the message of The Painted Veil, where egocentrics turn noble in the face of a scourge and British ingenuity gets fresh water back into town. If that all sounds a little Empire-ish and 20's-ish, so be it. Maugham wrote the novel, after all, in 1925. And if the characters are mostly walking cardboard, some very good actors give them a dash of life, including Naomi Watts as Kitty, Diana Rigg as Mother Superior, and -- especially -- Toby Jones as Waddington. The on location settings are beautiful, and the film works nicely as a travelogue for journeys to the Chinese interior, assuming that epidemic has stayed quelled. I watched The Painted Veil, enjoyed it, and found not one thing in it that will last in memory beyond tomorrow morning. It did, in short, what some movies set out to do -- entertain. And sometimes that's enough.
