Because, for her efforts in The Painted Veil, she is back in my good graces. Naomi and I run very hot and cold, see. Hot: King Kong, Mulholland Dr, I Heart "ffffuckabees!" Cold: practically everything else 'cept maybe Tank Girl just for nostalgic 'I saw her first' reasons.
Turns out that The Painted Veil is pretty damn good. It's an adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novel of the same name which concerns the (very) unhappy marriage of Walter Fane, a bacterialogist, and his spoiled society wife Kitty Fane in 1920s England. The miserable couple travel to China to fight the cholera epidemic. If you're thinking 'hey, that sounds like a Merchant/Ivory plot where British people are transformed by leaving their country!' you'd be exactly right. It's decidedly of that genre. But, it's also a solid involving movie that doesn't trip itself up as much as The White Countess did last year in its busy third act.
Here's hoping director John Curran stays period because this romantic drama is a far more successful and less facile than his previous exploration of marital dischord, We Dont Live Here Anymore. It helps that Watts is terrific, she makes specific choices about her character work and underplays her character arc, making Kitty's various changes of heart feel more genuine than many a movie transformation. It also helps that her co-star Edward Norton seems far more invested in his character than he has in recent films (added bonus: This is the best he's ever looked onscreen). The movie is gorgeous, too --particularly the Oscar nomination worthy costumes from Ruth Myers and the freeze frameable beauty from The Piano's cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the score by Alexandre Desplat (of Birth reknown) is the best thing about it. I'm hoping this film provides him his first Oscar nomination rather than his less impressive work in the Queen, which is more likely to corral multiple Oscar nods.I wish that the movie didn't hedge its bets about the audience intelligence in a couple of key sequences (yes, it does employ my least favorite filmic device: the flashback to something you'll remember instantly before the flashback even begins) but overall this is a sensuous well acted success. B+
The Painted Veil opens in NYC and LA on December 20th for Oscar eligibility. The rest of you will have to wait.
