The Painted Veil focuses on a frivolous woman, played by Naomi Watts, who marries a man, played by Edward Norton, who studies infectious diseases, for all the wrong reasons. They move to China for his career, and the husband’s romantic image of his wife is dashed to pieces. They soon must endure a cholera outbreak and conditions as harsh as the state of their marriage. The Painted Veil asks if the two can ever find a way to not see the worst in the other.
Of course, I assume that you know how that turns out based on the attractiveness and talents of the leading actors and the poster art, but The Painted Veil takes a rather rocky and circuitous way in the manner that the pair find each other which distinguishes it from other epic love stories. The Painted Veil is mostly a hate, but we have to begrudgingly live together story so when they do finally find each other, it feels earned and redemptive rather than cheap and formulaic. The Painted Veil is mostly about using times of turmoil to enrich one’s character through hard work and service to others. The Painted Veil gently suggests that sometimes in order to truly see someone, you have to look through someone else’s eyes.
The Painted Veil has a lush Merchant-Ivory film feel to it that seems to be uncharacteristic for the director, John Curran. From a brief review of other films that he directed, The Painted Veil seems to be his only period film and his first set in a foreign location, but he does seem to favor Watts and Norton-who wouldn’t! Curran seems to have a talent, and I hope that he revisits the challenge by abandoning his mostly contemporary movies.
The Painted Veil is far from a perfect movie. Initially The Painted Veil felt rushed so the whole marital enterprise could meet disaster as soon as possible, but after the crisis point, the film finds it rhythm. It also does not hurt that The Painted Veil has an amazing supporting cast, which includes Toby Jones and Diana Rigg, better known as Lady Oleanna in Game of Thrones. The Painted Veil needs a spin off movie or TV series where we just follow Colonel Yu, played by Anthony Wong Chau Sang, who plays a biracial Chinese man and puts Norton’s occasionally imperialistic and culturally tone-deaf character in his place while navigating the less desirable elements of his fellow countrymen. When he told Norton that he spoke every language, I mentally added bitch for him. I love an innovative, but world-weary bureaucrat who is tired of being condescended to by some guy who just arrived yesterday. I need to know his back story. More Colonel Yu!
Unfortunately The Painted Veil is not perfect in its depiction of Chinese people. There is a weird mob scene that comes off less righteously angry against imperialist foreigners and more the single British imperial staving off the horde of barbarians from the vulnerable, delicate flower of femininity. Also why did the big Chinese guard have to seem like an idiot? The Painted Veil is an adaptation of a famous novel so maybe all the answers to my questions lie therein, but I have no interest in reading it.
As a completist, I would love to see the original film adaptation made in 1934 starring the iconic Greta Garbo and the second film adaptation made in 1957 called The Seventh Sin to see how they all measure up to each other. I did something similar with various incarnations of The Postman Rings Twice. Unfortunately those adaptations of The Painted Veil are not available on Netflix, but at least we have Curran’s version, which is a must see, sumptuous albeit initially flawed masterpiece that finds its footing and stays on the road to redemption.