The Painted Veil

[KLAXXON]

A woman becomes dissatisfied with her marriage, as her husband favors his research over time with her. An affair leads her on a journey of self-discovery, and her new dedication to fighting cholera brings her to the Far East.

These two movies, a world apart in terms of period, class and continent, present different perspectives on Englishness. What unites them, in a curious way, is their exploration of a state of mind. The spoilt socialite of The Painted Veil may seem to have little in common with the pintsized skinhead of This Is England, but both are trying to cope with loneliness, and both attach themselves to company they later discover to be, in a word, wrong.


The Painted Veil, based on Somerset Maugham's novel about marital misadventure, initially trades in the brittle English politesse that came to be a byword for Merchant-Ivory films: there's more cream linen and muslin here than you can shake a malacca stick at. When, in 1920s London, the stiff-necked bacteriologist Walter Fane (Edward Norton) proposes marriage to the bored society girl Kitty (Naomi Watts), she accepts him almost out of irritation. "I think I improve greatly on acquaintance," Walter tells her, a remark that they will both come to rue after they relocate to Shanghai, and Kitty falls for a handsome vice consul (Liev Schreiber).

Walter discovers her infidelity, and decides on an exquisitely horrible revenge. He accepts a job in a remote mountain village in China where cholera has ravaged the population and, what's more, national unrest threatens the colonials. It's not quite the place to take your English rose, and Kitty soon realises the peril he has exposed them to. On arriving at their new home he points out the bed where the previous occupant expired: "That can be your room," he tells her. Maugham's cruelty of tone looks ahead to Graham Greene, who would have enjoyed this flyblown outpost on "the dangerous edge of things", and Greene may well have been inspired by the figure of the British deputy commissioner (Toby Jones) who anaesthetises himself with opium, whisky and exotic young flesh.

John Curran, who directed Watts in another tale of marital torture, We Don't Live Here Anymore (2004), controls the redemptive spirit of Maugham's book with merciful restraint, and gets excellent performances all round. Watts, in a role Garbo played in 1934, offers a touchingly bruised humanity as a woman punished beyond reason for her sins. Norton, suppressing the swagger, lends vivacity and humility to the cuckolded doctor. Better yet are Jones, like Peter Lorre in his pug-faced naughtiness, and Diana Rigg, as a worldly-wise mother superior, slyly inverting her sexpot past - not with a bang but with a wimple.

Some will baulk at the slow pace and intensity of the playing but, for me, these were precisely the qualities that made this work: amping it up might have tipped it into melodrama. It sneaked up on me, and I was moved.

SOMERSET Maugham’s classic 20s tale of infidelity, revenge and redemption in the Orient is brought to life in a terrifically acted and exquisitely beautiful drama starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts.

The Painted Veil was also actually shot in China – a rarity for a US film, apparently – with the makers taking full advantage of the country’s stunning scenery resulting in a movie that, in its own way, is as good looking as any effects-laden extravaganza.

The movie kicks off with husband and wife Walter and Kitty Fane (Norton and Watts) trekking across rural China, both of them looking thoroughly miserable as they’re carried across the stifling landscape in sedan chairs by locals.

Through a series of flashbacks, we learn the couple were only recently wed, but already their relationship is on the rocks. Mismatched from the start, the flighty Kitty has jeopardised their marriage thanks to a fling with a local civil servant (Liev Schreiber) and now Walter has devised an ingenious – and unbelievably cruel – way of getting his own back.


With a cast also including Toby Jones and our very own Diana Rigg, this is a subtle, grown-up film, examining the minute subtleties of human relationships with a clinical, almost forensic eye. While Walter is a sensitive, if bookish, bacteriologist, his new bride is a frivolous flapper who only accepted his marriage proposal due to her fear of being left on the shelf.

Nobody does forbidden passion like Maugham, who once said the only love that lasts is the unrequited variety, and his favourite theme of just who holds the power in a relationship is very much to the fore throughout. And as the movie progresses, you find your allegiances to Walter and Kitty switching back and forth.

You truly can’t fault the performances of anyone here. Jones is particularly good fun as an amiable colonial type whiling away his days supping large gins, King Kong star Watts is spot on as the shallow girl who is forced to grow up, while Norton nails one heck of a difficult part, portraying a character who’s never likable but, over the course of the movie, gradually wins our respect.

It’s a little slow-moving initially, but go with it and you’ll discover an exceptionally satisfying relationship drama that’s right up there with anything Merchant Ivory ever made.

It all makes you wonder why there haven’t been more recent adaptations of Maugham’s dazzling back catalogue, with classics such as The Razor’s Edge, The Moon And Sixpence and especially Of Human Bondage all surely ripe for the remake treatment.

BEST QUOTE: “Women are always under the impression that men love them more that they really do.”

BEST BIT: Wonderful scenery, great performances and a superb story. I could go on.

WORST BIT: Maybe a little slow to begin with.

IF YOU LIKED... White Mischief, A Passage To India... YOU’LL LIKE THIS.

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


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