The Painted Veil

I should tell you right away: I didn't like this movie, so reading this will be a spoiler if you plan on seeing it.

In general I think I do a pretty good job at not being a movie snob; I like a lot of blockbusters, sophomoric comedies and overpriced adventure movies, but I also love tons of classics and independent films. (Ebert & Roeper are always fun to watch because of this, balancing fairly discriminating taste with very indiscriminate viewing.)

The Painted Veil is a great story (based on the book by M. Somerset Maugham) with some of the best examples of people bearing the pain - and, later, satisfaction - of unwittingly making a good decision. Walter (Edward Norton) and Kitty (Naomi Watts) jump quickly into marriage: Kitty to get away from her mother (the couple almost immediately move to China for Walter's job) and Walter for love-at-first-sight. Each expects the other to behave in a way they know is inconsistent with their character and past behavior. Inevitably, the rebellious Kitty has an affair and Walter, shamed, threatens Kitty with either a scandalous public divorce or a move to the interior of China, where a cholera epidemic is ravaging the countryside. After Kitty's lover fails her and goes back to his own wife, she travels with Walter to the isolated province, Walter punishing her endlessly in every small way for her bad behavior.

The epidemic acts as a mirror, revealing to Walter his cold exterior and to Kitty her extreme frivolity. As they improve themselves they come to recognize the good in each other and begin to reconcile. As their dispositions improve, the cholera epidemic and political unrest grow worse. I'll leave it to you to guess which one of them comes down with cholera and finishes off the downward spiral of this melodramatic movie.

Yes, the story and dialogue are good, but Somerset Maugham provided that. And yes, the acting was great, but the director made bad decisions about pacing and the director of photography made really bad decisions when filming; the movie was too Hollywood, too glossy, too pretty. There was something gritty missing from their experience, the thing that made them turn into the people they were by the end. Too much emphasis was placed on costume and set design when subtlety would have made the dialogue much more striking.

Walter: I knew when I married you that you were selfish
and spoiled, but I loved you.
Kitty: I married you even though I didn't love you, but
you knew that. Aren't you as much to blame for what happened as I?

Lines that could easily be read as melodrama (and might have been when Maugham wrote them), but a skillful director could have made them powerful and subtle. Maybe this was the point, but the way the film was shot was more akin to a sightseeing show on the Travel Channel instead of an arduous, dirty, life-changing journey. What could have been a moving story was changed into a melodrama on top of a tourism pamphlet for rural China.