The Painted Veil - A-

On DVD, 125 minutes, PG-13.

If I have seen a more beautiful film than The Painted Veil in the last two years, I can’t think of what it is. Set primarily in a Chinese village during a Cholera outbreak in 1925, the story begins in London when a bacteriologist, Dr. Walter Fane (Edward Norton), falls in love with Kitty, an impetuous, spoiled, beautiful woman (Naomi Watts). She is the type of woman F. Scott Fitzgerald made his reputation writing about. Kitty agrees to marry Dr. Fane to escape her mother even as she views him with indifference shading towards loathing. They leave immediately for Shanghai where the good doctor works and Kitty finds another man to occupy her time. The fallout from this indiscretion drive the young couple into the Chinese backwater where Fane attempts to stop the epidemic, leaving his punished wife alone. It is here, among piles of corpses and gorgeous hills that rise up like uneven, moss-covered teeth, that the effects of betrayal, hatred, and love are played out.

Naomi Watts is perfect as Kitty. Edward Norton, disappointing in The Illusionist, is back at the top of his game here. He is impressive in playing a detached and analytical man while nailing the emotions that lie deep below the surface.

“We didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but we fell in love,” Kitty cries, but this film sneers at that line just as Norton does. There are no “free love”, watered-down romantic notions here. Similar to Waitress, this film explores the effects and causes of infidelity. But, unlike Waitress, it holds a hard line, blaming both parties even as it holds out hope of redemption. And then there’s the cinematography of Stuart Dryburgh (The Piano), stunning and intrinsic to the plot as we are reminded that death and life and beauty and pain lay side-by-side in this world—and change from one to the other in a heartbreaking second. The Romantics argue that life’s too short to get caught up on fidelity and rules. The Painted Veil counters that it’s too short not to. This is a lovely film that captures the feel of Hollywood’s golden age. A-