There's something missing at the heart of the film, some spark, and it may be nothing more than a lack of chemistry between Norton and Watts.
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12/29/06
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The Painted Veil (2006)
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Reviews Counted:140
Fresh:103
Rotten:37
Average Rating:7.1/10
Consensus: Visually, The Painted Veil has all the trappings of a stuffy period drama, but Norton's and Watts's deft portrayals of imperfect, complicated characters give the film a modern-day spark.
Theatrical Release:Dec 20, 2006 Limited
Box Office: $7,932,205
Synopsis: The third film version of Somerset Maughm's 1925 novel--directed by John Curran--is ripe with stunning Chinese locales and a smart turn from Naomi Watts as Kitty Fane, the aging English socialite... [More]
Starring: Naomi Watts, Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber, Diana Rigg
Director: John Curran
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Reviews for The Painted Veil
Its strength lies in its patience -- and its slow, melting sorrow that hints at atonement.
12/29/06
The Painted Veil never really transcends a predictable, historical model of sacrifice and personal growth, and there's not enough of the latter.
12/29/06
Top CriticThe film manages to be a lush period piece, a love story, an examination of culture clash and a slow revelation of character emerging from stunted emotion.
12/29/06
This version has that element the previous films lacked: a true understanding of Maugham's belief that true love and purpose are inseparable.
12/29/06
Top CriticThe filmmakers are mindful of the challenges inherent in filming Maugham's novel. But The Painted Veil never fully finesses the novel's 1920s attitudes toward its ethnic others.
12/29/06
Solid as this Painted Veil is, there's also a predictability to its Puritanism. To succumb to it, you have to really be in the mood to watch a good man teach a foolish woman a lesson.
12/29/06
[Director] Curran has crafted a film that accomplishes so much. It not only draws us into this personal drama between his two principal actors, but also sets it all against a vibrant background of an ancient civilization struggling to become modern.
12/29/06
Norton and Schreiber seem too American to be English colonials, but Watts navigates a challenging transformation (in a role first played by Greta Garbo in 1934), and there are sturdy performances by Anthony Wong, Toby Jones, and Diana Rigg.
12/29/06
Even amid an atmosphere of human rot, it's too elegant for its own good, a pleasing but pale Merchant-Ivory exercise that reverently strives for a kind of simple redemptive decency that Maugham found less triumphant than this movie does.
12/29/06
Top CriticWatts and Norton ... emphasize the loaded gestures and veiled asides that govern relationships in real life, as opposed to the melodramatic tirades that dominate the movies.
12/29/06
The Painted Veil is like one of those typical Oscar bait type of films that haven't been Oscar bait in about 10 years.
12/28/06
All this comes from a novel by Somerset Maugham, although the movie leaves out most of the complexities of the book to focus on the single-minded venom of the marriage.
12/28/06
Top CriticIt's a grim, demanding movie, but the acting is marvelous and the scenery breathtaking. If you're looking for a film to match the post-holiday blues, here it is. And it's very good.
12/28/06
Top CriticStunning locations, a story with strong emotional, physical and spiritual conflicts, and a first-rate cast.
12/28/06
There is not an actor in The Painted Veil who is anything less than supremely talented. But despite having a razor-sharp script from which to work, [director John] Curran can't quite get a single character to come fully alive.
12/28/06
A delicate work of smothered passion that taps into the agony of a loveless marriage.
12/28/06
The film's visual splendor is about more than scenery as Dryburgh attains first character definition, then emotional wallop with...closeups of Walter's bare foot.
12/23/06
The Painted Veil may begin too slowly, but it also ends too soon.
12/22/06
The Painted Veil lifts Maugham’s story clear of its prissy, attenuated spirituality, and into genuine passion.
12/22/06
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