The Painted Veil

Patricia and I went to this movie on Saturday (January 20). Actually didn't intend to go to this movie but the time was convenient. Amazingly enough, this makes two movies in a row that I really liked.

In this one, an English bacteriologist is back home in London for a short visit. An immature but aging woman - heck, she was 25 and unmarried - is feeling family pressure to get married. So they're both feeling the clock ticking and get married. He loves her, but not vice versa. They go back to Shanghai where she misbehaves. As punishment, he volunteers to serve in a town ravaged by a cholera epidemic, and forces her to go along. In that setting, they are able to see the finer sides of one other.

I liked the leads (Naomi Watts and Ed Norton) and thought they did a great job. I actually cared that they might find some happiness, which I guess is what a good movie is supposed to do.

I liked the setting - 1920s China - with Nationalist overtones, anti-Western sentiment, etc. Great photography. Based on a novel by Somerset Maugham but I don't know whether it's faithful to the novel. I intend to find out. I guess there have been a couple previous movie versions, including one from the 1930s starring Greta Garbo and Herbert Marshall.

Finished a nice evening with a light supper off the bar menu at The Roaring Fork. A good place. Sometime we need to actually have a dinner there.