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The Painted Veil
The Painted Veil tells the story of an English couple played by Edward Norton and Naomi Watts who travel to a Chinese town led by Anthony Wong to get rid of a cholera epidemic. Unfortunately, Anthony doesn't pull an Untold Story and slice and dice Eddie and Naomi into BBQ pork buns, so we're stuck with this Lifetime movie of the week with a bigger budget.
Okay, sure, so perhaps I'm not the target audience for this type of movie, but the happenings here are pretty ridiculous even by weepie standards. The whole reason Edward wants to go to into the cholera-infected town is because Naomi cheated on him. Personally, I'd just go for a divorce, but apparently, the risk of having to crap and puke your guts out is much more of a punishment. And, of course, it allows Edward to be the great white savior to the yellow people, who are still making themselves sick by burying their dead right next to the river they use for drinking water.
I wouldn't go so far as to call The Painted Veil outright racist, but it is really goddamn ignorant and lazy when it comes to its' portrayal of Chinese people and culture. They're alternatively shown as superstitious and unreasonably violent, where Edward Norton's whiskey-sotten and bull-headed character is shown a heroic because he manages to determine that Naomi Watts is a hot piece of trim that's worth tapping, shortly before -- oh, snap! -- he gets cholera himself. Somebody get me a hanky -- I'm crying my eyes out over here.
Again, I'm certain that someone like me is not in the target demographic for a picture like The Painted Veil, but I think there are much better things you can do with two hours of your life rather than watching this movie. Serving meals to the homeless. Studying classic philosophical texts. Sending random semi-stalkerish messages on Facebook to your exes. Pretty much anything would be a more constructive use of your time than wasting it with a viewing of this slice of colonial pseudo-propaganda disguised as a love story. RATING: 4 |
