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DESCRIPTION
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.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569585577 Manufacturer No: 58557
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
