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THE PAINTED VEIL
Directed by John Curran.
Produced by: Sara Colleton, Jean-François Fonlupt, Bob Yari, Edward Norton, & Naomi Watts.
Screenplay by: Ron Nyswaner, from the novel by W. Somerset Maugham.
Director of Photography by: Stuart Dryburgh.
Editing by Alexandre de Franceschi.
Music by Alexandre Desplat.
Released by: Warner Independent.
Country of Origin: USA. 125 min. Rated PG-13.
With: Naomi Watts, Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber, Toby Jones, & Diana Rigg.

What sometimes irks me even more than seeing a bad movie is seeing a lavishly romanticized film that leaves me feeling indifferent. And indifference, more than anything, leads to a sense of boredom, even though it’s not that the filmmakers and the cast don’t try their best to pull off this adaptation of the 1925 novel by W. Somerset Maugham.

Bacteriologist Walter Fane (Norton) sees Kitty (Naomi Watts) walking down a staircase one night at a London party, and falls immediately in love. It leads to him asking – practically demanding – her hand in marriage before he’s to depart for Shanghai. Having tired of her mother’s not-so-subtle hints it’s time she marry, Kitty reluctantly accepts the proposal. Now part of the British colonial set in China, the distance between the newlyweds grows quickly, however, and she begins an affair with Charlie Townsend (Liev Schreiber) of the British Consulate. So far, the story is compellingly and compactly told. Walter discovers his wife’s dalliance and gives her an ultimatum – either go with him to a remote Chinese village where cholera has broken out and which needs a doctor or divorce and marry Charlie, who is also very much married. When Charlie hems and haws at the suggestion of divorce and remarriage, Kitty is left with no choice and goes with her husband into the mountainous interior.

Americans Norton and, especially, Schreiber have convincing British accents, and the early tensions of Kitty and Walter’s courtship is played out with conviction and truth (Watts is excellent here). The setup feels like it could be right out of a melodrama from Hollywood's Golden Age, but I could guess what might happen, at least the core of it: in such a tense, alien, but beautiful environment, the estranged couple’s bitterness subsides, and they truly fall in love with each other.

The plot incidents feel like they’ve been rushed through, and it doesn’t take much to see not just where the romantic aspect of the film will go, but also with the socio-political aspect to the setting, as well as with the epidemic in the village. Maybe that comes with the old-fashioned storytelling sensibilities from the novel, but it all feels too easy and, after a while, dull in that chances aren’t taken by the filmmakers. Norton can be at times the most affecting and emotionally charged under-40 American actor, and Watts has established a terrific career from works ranging from Mulholland Drive to King Kong, but here they feel content to just go through the motions. Only when matters are really at stake for the characters – like Kitty and Walter’s marriage in the first half – did I get more than the impression of the actors doing more than phoning it in.

The cinematography achieves the lush colors and hazy humidity of the village and countryside, and a melancholic Satie-inspired musical score punctuates the story’s highs and lows. So really, there SHOULD be things I could recommend about the movie, but I can’t really at the same time. Even for the audiences that the film is most intended for, either die-hard fans of the book/author or of weepy, romantic melodramas with a touch of the exotic, it’s only worth so much attention. As Pauline Kael once said of pictures like these, it “reeks of quality.” If only that quality could hold my interest more, with a cast I generally really enjoy under other circumstances. Jack Gattanella
December 20, 2006