What to Stream: Edward Norton Gives a Career-Best Performance in the Literary Drama 'The Painted Veil'
The Painted Veil (2006) Amazon Instant, iTunes
The Basics: A doctor and his estranged wife travel to ‘20s-era China to combat a cholera epidemic and heal their marriage.
If You Like: Howard’s End, The Last Emperor, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
The spirit of Merchant Ivory — the esteemed filmmaking team responsible for top-shelf literary adaptations like A Room with a View, Howard’s End and The Remains of the Day — is felt strongly throughout John Curran’s sorely under-seen version of British author W. Somerset Maughm’s 1925 novel. Filmed on location in China, the movie avoids the stiff self-consciousness that can often accompany translating Great English Literature to the big screen, getting at the beating heart beneath the author’s imposing text. It also boasts what may be Edward Norton’s most impressive performance to date — as cuckolded bacteriologist Walter Fane — mainly because it’s his least Norton-y turn ever. Movies like Fight Club and Birdman make brilliant use of his live-wire intensity and wicked sense of humor, but The Painted Veil requires him to cast those completely aside in favor of a quiet restraint and simmering fury. Frankly, he’s a better Bruce Banner-type here than he was in The Incredible Hulk.
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Not that Norton’s co-stars are slouches, either. As Fane’s straying wife Kitty, Naomi Watts takes a character who could have been portrayed as an unsympathetic shrew and allows us insight into her plight. Having rushed into marriage with the ill-compatible Walter as an escape from her family, she’s still struggling to establish her own identity with a partner who may profess to adore her, but also clearly doesn’t understand her. It’s that feeling of isolation that leads to a dalliance with a handsome married stranger (Watt’s real-life husband, Liev Schreiber), who then rejects her after Walter insists the only way he’ll grant a divorce is if she and her lover wed. The unhappy couple then departs for China, where Fane throws himself into combating the cholera outbreak while leaving Kitty to her own devices. Perhaps because of the foreignness of their surroundings—as well as the perilous nature of Walter’s work—the two discover each other again, only to have their romance take one final tragic turn. Sound melodramatic? It is…but when it’s played with this much feeling, it’s hard not to be swept away.
Watch the trailer below:
Photo: Everett
