The Painted Veil (2006)

User Rating:

7.6/10   

Director:

John Curran

Writers (WGA):

Ron Nyswaner (screenplay)
W. Somerset Maugham (novel)

Release Date:

19 January 2007 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Tagline:

Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people

Plot:

A British medical doctor fights a cholera outbreak in a small Chinese village, while also being trapped at home in a loveless marriage to an unfaithful wife.

Plot Keywords:

Marriage | Cholera | China | Epidemic | Doctor

Awards:

Won Golden Globe. Another 4 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Catherine An	...	Hostess
Bin Li	...	Te-Ming
Bin Wu	...	Student 1
Alan David	...	Mr. Garstin
Marie-Laure Descoureaux	...	Sister St. Joseph
Sally Hawkins	...	Mary
Juliet Howland	...	Dorothy Townsend
Toby Jones	...	Waddington
Lorraine Laurence	...	Sister Maryse
Johnny Lee	...	Angry Chinese Man
Li Feng	...	Sung Ching
Gesang Meiduo	...	Amah
Edward Norton	...	Walter Fane
Yin Qing	...	Student 2
Ian Renwick	...	Geoffrey Denison (as Ian Rennick)

Also Known As:

Mian sha (China: Mandarin title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for some mature sexual situations, partial nudity, disturbing images and brief drug content.

Runtime:

USA:125 min | Argentina:125 min

Country:

China | USA

Language:

Mandarin | English | French

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Malaysia:(Banned) | Singapore:NC-16 | Finland:K-11 | Ireland:12A | Hong Kong:IIA | Denmark:11 | UK:12 (DVD rating) | UK:12A (original rating) | South Korea:15 | Canada:G (Quebec) | Portugal:M/12 (Qualidade) | Canada:PG (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Ontario) | USA:PG-13 (certificate #42973) | France:U | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Sweden:11

Filming Locations:

Beijing Film Studio, Beijing, China

Company:

WIP

Trivia:

German Oscar-Award-winning director Caroline Link was attached to the project, also working on her own version of the screenplay.

Goofs:

Factual errors: As the film begins Walter Fane states that he is a bacteriologist. Arriving at the cholera village he explains to the locals that he is an M.D. specializing in control of infectious disease. Those are not the same occupation.

Quotes:

[while Walter and Kitty are out at the Chinese Opera with Charlie and Dorothy Townsend]
Charlie Townsend: Are you enjoying it?
Kitty Fane: I've never seen anything like it.
Charlie Townsend: Every gesture has a meaning. See how she covers her face with the cloth? She is mourning her misfortune.
Kitty Fane: What happened to her?
Charlie Townsend: She was sold into slavery. Condemned to a life of drudgery and despair in a strange land far from home. See the chains? They represent the heavy bondage of her poor, trapped soul from which there is no escape, and so she weeps. She weeps for the lively, vivacious girl she once was, the lonely woman she has become... and most of all... she weeps for the love she'll never feel, for the love she'll never give.
[...]

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 64th Annual Golden Globe Awards (2007) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Le Furet Du Bois Joli

Watts and Norton present The Painted Veil in vivid, true to life colors

The Painted Veil has all of the elements a viewer looks for in a period piece set during the time of British colonial rule. Beautiful scenery and costumes, a cast of thousands, and enough background information to make you feel you are more educated about a time and place than you were before you saw the movie.

What this film offers the fortunate viewer that many other movies of its kind do not, are lead characters you can actually empathize with and grow to care about. "Walter" and "Kitty" are far more likable and worth rooting for than- I don't know, let's say- Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas in the English Patient (see? I don't even remember their characters' names.) The movie's tagline- "Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people" succinctly points to the heart of this film, and what makes it work so well; the journey of a couple who married for the wrong reasons towards true intimacy with each other.

On one level, the plot is so simple and straightforward that a one line summary gives the whole story away, and for that reason, I will refrain from providing that information as much as possible. It is enough to know that it is the story of The Fanes- Walter, the shy, bookish bacteriologist, and Kitty, the shallow, haughty young woman he becomes infatuated in and persuades to marry him. Walter takes Kitty to Shanghai, where he works in a government lab. Circumstances lead Walter to re-locate them to a more remote area of China in the throes of a cholera epidemic. It is in this setting that the parallel stories unfold; the story of a doctor and his wife living in the house of a dead missionary's family as the doctor tries to get control of the conditions responsible for the epidemic, and the story of the couple's journey towards re-discovering each other.

The impressive skill that Ms. Watts and Mr. Norton bring to their work truly makes you believe that that the first challenge- combating cholera amid colonial unrest and nationalist hostilities is easier than the task of repairing a damaged marriage, and with each uneasy glance and every unsaid word, you feel what these two people feel. And that is the beauty of The Painted Veil. Fans of Ms. Watts and Mr. Norton will have reason to rejoice- this is a performance unlike any I have ever seen Ms. Watts give. There is nothing of what was becoming her trademark "emotionally fragile woman in shambles" persona on display here. And what of Edward Norton? Well, after his turn in The Illusionist earlier in the year and now "Walter Fane," all I can say is, move over, Ralph Fiennes- there's a new sexy "repressed, stiff-upper-lipped, sensually simmering under the surface" leading man in town.

The Painted Veil is an intelligently adapted, well-directed film with two charismatic, award-worthy lead performances and a strong supporting cast, including Liev Schreiber, Diana Rigg, and most notably Toby Jones as the Fanes' neighbor. It is also wonderfully entertaining, and a good introduction to the period piece/historical epic genre some viewers have been avoiding due to fear of suffocation.