Tonight we watched the movie The Painted Veil. I wasn't sure what to expect of the movie. I'd seen the trailer, which left the door open for it to be a good movie or a bad movie, but then I never heard any reviews or heard that anyone had seen the movie. It seemed to have left the theaters quickly...never a good sign...and is already on DVD. So, I watched it thinking something must be off...that it wasn't a great movie, but that it probably wasn't an awful movie either.
That just about sums it up. Or better put...it's a movie that misses. It had potential, but somehow it just misses the mark. And I'm not completely sure why.
The movie stars Naomi Watts as Kitty, an upperclass English woman that marries, not for love, but to get away from her nagging mother. Kitty's husband, Walter (played by Edward Norton), is a middleclass bacteriologist working in Shanghai. The first part of the movie flashes back and forth between the meeting of Kitty and Walter in England in 1923 and their leaving Shanghai in 1925 to go to a remote Chinese village suffering through a cholera epidemic. Kitty is forced to go with Walter or let him ruin her reputation by divorcing her since she's having an affair. This being a movie, things go down hill and then when things couldn't get any worse, Kitty and Walter get drunk, kick start their marriage again, only to have one of them get cholera.
The movie moves at a slow, deliberate pace at all times, but still manages to rush the beginning. We are given glimpses of the characters before we leave Shanghai for the epidemic. These glimpses tell us what is happening, but don't get us involved or attached to the characters. For example, we see that Kitty is more emotionally expressive than the staid Walter, even though he is the one in love. We also see in one scene that Walter is less comfortable with sex than Kitty...it's he that turns off the light and is hesitant. Yet two years have passed and we don't know if the situation stays the same or why Kitty has an affair. This continues throughout the movie...too little set up, no emotional payoff.
I've frequently heard that Naomi Watts is an excellent actress, but this is the first movie I've seen her in. (Surely I must be wrong about this.) She was the emotional core of the movie and she did hold the focus of my attention squarely on her character. Edward Norton had a more difficult roll...making us like and care for a taciturn, dull bloke that forces his wife into a dangerous situation as an act of punishment. Norton is good, but there never seemed to be any depth below the surface. Toby Jones, another actor I'd never seen before this movie, creates an interesting and attention grabber as Waddington. I enjoyed his performance enough that I might have to watch Infamous. Sadly, another first...I was disappointed with Diana Rigg's performance. It's not the first time I've seen her, it's the first time I didn't believe her.
Overall, this is a decent movie, some eye catching scenery (but even this wasn't as good as it should have been) and some worth while performances. I wonder how close the movie is to the book? Anyone know? There are two previous adaptations of this novel, one of the same name starring Greta Garbo and another version from the 1950s called The Seventh Sin.
Favorite line:
Walter: I suppose I'm not used to speaking unless I've something to say.
Kitty: If people only spoke when they had something to say, the human race would soon lose the power of speech.
Missy edits to add: Or at least we'd lose all the politicians. ;-)
Time is flying though I do not want to say this. Life is changing everyday; it changes you, me and anyone else.
We are aware of it, afraid of it, while we just couldn’t stop it from changing. We are so tiny in front of life.
Time and time again we ask our parents, our friends, our lovers to let us go. Then
what? When they finally let us go we feel scared, disappointed, and tear shows.
The handling of the details of the movie is the most laudable part, it can touch you so deeply and lastingly.
Posted by: eronne | August 03, 2009 at 10:51 PM