The title of the W. Somerset Maugham novel "The Painted Veil" is taken from the first two lines of a poem by Shelley: "Lift not the painted veil which those who live call Life." It's a rather dark poem about love, fear and vain hope.
Director John Curran's adaptation is not as dark as either the Shelley poem or the Maugham. Apparently he has determined that modern audiences respond best to sadness when it is transcended, and he's probably right.
The central events of the story are a betrayal and a cholera epidemic in 1925 China, and yet he has made a film, augmented by award-winning music composed by Alexandre Desplat, that finds lyrical beauty amid the ugliness of human emotion and disease.
The film, which is scheduled to play another week at the Town Theatre in Highland, follows Maugham closely through its first half.
Walter, shy bacteriologist, stationed in China, meets Kitty, an attractive young woman whose mother is pushing to get married, meet in London and wed, though they know each other not at all.
In Shanghai, Kitty falls in love and has an affair with Charlie, an ambitious deputy counsel, who is as charming and outgoing as Walter is diffident and quiet. Walter gives Kitty a choice to avoid scandal.
He will let her divorce him quietly if Charlie's wife will agree to give him a divorce and Charlie will promise to marry her immediately.
The alternative is that Kitty will accompany him to the interior being decimated by cholera, where Walter has volunteered to replace the doctor who has died.
But Charlie balks, as Walter knew he would, and with nowhere else to go, Kitty is forced to face the deadly disease while nursing a broken heart.
In the second half, Curran and screenwriter Ron Nyswaner ("Philadelphia") mix elements of the book with a tale of love discovered amid tragedy.
The strong cast includes Naomi Watts, Edward Norton and Liev Schreiber as Kitty, Walter and Charlie; Toby Jones as Waddington, who befriends Kitty; and Diana Rigg, who plays the nun who teaches Kitty about sacrifice and devotion.
In modernizing the story, Curran and Nyswaner have wrapped the parcel a little too neatly, I suspect, for those who appreciate the ineffable ambiguity of Maugham's work.
But "The Painted Veil" is a still a powerful film about the bittersweet discoveries to be made when one lifts the veil of life.
Local veteran journalist Jim Gordon reviews movies for The Times. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer. He can be reached at jamgordo@iun.edu.
onScreen
"The Painted Veil"
Starring: Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Liev Schreiber, Toby Jones
Director: John Curran
Rated: R
Grade: B+
