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Shelf Beauties
by Willie Waffle
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The
Painted Veil
I am embarrassed
to admit this, but it proves my point about the movie.
During The
Painted Veil, I fell asleep for
about a minute. It’s
horribly
unprofessional (and quite frightening to discover you are the one who
is
snoring), but also shows you how boring the movie can be, even when you
are
getting paid to be attentive.
Naomi Watts
stars as Kitty – a 1920’s party girl who has driven
her rich family to the
brink of financially cutting her off unless she gets her act together
(if only
the Hilton family would do the same).
To
get away from them, Kitty decides to marry Walter (Edward Norton)
– a
bacteriologist who studies germs and diseases (I hope he washes his
hands
thoroughly before coming home). While
she is outgoing and always the belle of the ball, he is shy and
awkward, but
deeply in love with her in ways that she is not in love with him.
Along the way,
Kitty
has engaged in a heated affair with the society circuit’s
most charming (but
married) man, Charlie Townsend (Liev Schreiber), who seems to have
everything
Kitty finds attractive in the opposite sex, everything that is lacking
in Walter. However,
when her husband finds out, he signs
up to travel to the most remote and desolate part of China
to study and hopefully stop a
cholera outbreak. Why? To bring Kitty and punish
her for her
dalliance (DAMN! That’s cold, but something to keep in mind
of you ever catch
your significant other doing the horizontal mambo with someone else).
Will
Kitty be
able to withstand the journey? What
does
Walter have planned for her thousands of miles away from the world they
know?
The
Painted Veil is a bland movie desperately seeking some excitement, and one oddly structured
in reverse. Writer Ron Nyswaner (based
on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham) has the “break up” and scandal happen
early on, then uses the rest of the movie to show us the relationship between Walter
and Kitty, how they appear to be growing together, and the final resolution to
their marriage (Watts admitted this part of the story on a late night program,
so don’t blame me for giving anything away). Admittedly, it’s nice to see
something different, but one is left to wonder how Walter, who seems so
outraged by the entire affair, would be willing to forgive Kitty so easily,
especially with so much intimation early on that he is going to do something fairly
horrible to her.
I guess it’s
supposed to be a love story as she learns to appreciate the man who isn’t as
flashy and charming, but reliable and goodhearted as they face great difficulty,
but the movie needs more, even if we are supposed to feel Kitty has changed. Director John Curran fills The
Painted Veil with
all of these long musical montages that don’t advance the story, only briefly
touch upon the unrest in China and the coming revolution, and are more for
showing how he and cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh can capture the landscape (I
guess they were going for that Best Cinematography Oscar). With the biggest, most shocking moments
happening early on, we need something to drive the story.
All of this
leaves Norton and Watts trying to make love
out of nothing at all, and they do what they can. Norton is almost perfect as the cuckolded
hubby, and brings on the rage and English accent exactly the way an actor
should, which further proves how awesome he is at his craft, even in a
sub-standard film. Watts
is fantastic as the cheating wife, yet, still finds a way to redeem Kitty to
make the ending work better than you might expect. Finally, Toby Jones will shock you as Walter
and Kitty’s pal as he brings a cool creepy vibe as well as being their
confidante.
The
Painted Veil is like one of those typical Oscar bait type of films that haven’t been Oscar
bait in about 10 years.
1 ½ Waffles (Out Of 4)
Copyright
2006 - WaffleMovies.com
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