The Painted Veil

13 May, 2008 02:58 AM2 mins to read

Herald rating

: * * *

Verdict

An old-fashioned sprawling period saga looks marvellous but is far from penetrating.

The 1925 Somerset Maugham novel on which this film is based has

inspired two previous adaptations, notably the 1934 version with Greta

Garbo in the lead role. This version is intended as an old-fashioned

sprawling saga and to say that it achieves that aim is meant both as

compliment and criticism.

In visual terms - the cinematography,

the impeccable yet unshowy production and costume design, the stunning

rural China locations - it's a knockout, but as a psychological

thriller, which is in essence what Maugham was writing, it feels

underwritten and undercooked.

It's the story of Kitty (Watts), a

marriageable upper-class English girl who, largely to spite her

parents, accepts a sudden stuttering proposal of marriage from Walter

Fane (Norton), a China-based bacteriologist. Bored and isolated in Shanghai, she embarks on an affair with Charlie Townsend (Schreiber). Walter retaliates by taking her with him to a remote village in the grip of a cholera outbreak and the experience transforms them both.

The early events are narrated

with an economy that verges on the headlong: we don't watch Kitty being

self-centred, or realising that her marriage is loveless, or conceiving

a passion for Charlie; these matters are taken as read. Character is

revealed rather than developed.

Norton, an American, and

Australian Watts are so busy struggling with their accents that they

never really find their characters' hearts. But it's a solid piece of

period escapism.

Peter Calder

Cast

: Naomi Watts, Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber, Toby Young, Diana Rigg