W. Somerset Maugham was a keen observer of the human condition, of people living in strange lands, experiencing extreme emotion. The stories ring true even today, a lifetime after they were written.
‘The Painted Veil’ is a wonderfully constructed tale, which, surprisingly has only been made into a film once before, with Greta Garbo as Katrine (Kitty) Fane, the role now played by Naomi Watts.
It concerns a couple who married quickly for reasons having nothing to do with love and everything to do with expediency.
Fane is a middle class Londoner, whose parents make it clear that she must marry and move out. ‘How long do you expect your father to support you?’ shouts her mother.
Co-incidentally, a young man named Walter (Edward Norton) shows up at their door, clearly picked by her parents to get the whole wedding - move out thing launched. Kitty is humiliated, but sees nothing else in her future and agrees to marry him.
Love doesn’t enter the equation.
She finds herself in China, where he is a scientist studying bacteria and disease.
She relishes the exoticism of the city, and on that particular high, embarks on an affair with Charlie Townshend (Watt’s real life lover Liev Schreiber).
Walter learns he’s been cuckolded and launches a hardhearted revenge. He forces her to find out Townshend’s intentions – he has none – and cruelly shames her into depression and despair; she wonders if he has gone insane.
He volunteers to go to a remote village where a cholera epidemic is spreading. She has no choice but to accompany him, even though death from the disease is almost certain.
His cruelty knows no bounds; she knows he wants her dead.
They begin a shadowy, separate life in a mansion, which hovers grandly over the cholera-infested village. The position of their home separates them from the villagers and creates resentment, worsened by a violent uprising of nationalists who want all foreigners sent out of China.
They are the privileged class, riding in chairs and rickshaws carried by slaves, indifferent to the suffering and poverty around them.
Soon they must face those who hate them - the same people Fane is trying to save from cholera.
It sounds dry, but the richness of the story and the emotional truth makes it a riveting experience.
Watts and Norton’s characters lives change immensely in the course of the story.
Their performances are exceptional, as are performances by Toby Jones, Diana Rigg and a host of gifted Chinese actors.
However, this is a film in which story is the thing. It does not dwell indulgently in sentiment, psychotherapy or aimless introspection.
It is a pure and complete story in a remarkably executed film.
The Painted Veil
Limited opening USA December 29. MPAA: Rated PG-13 for some mature sexual situations, partial nudity, disturbing images and brief drug
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