The Painted Veil
Warner Independent Pictures (WIP) | Release Date: December 20, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
69
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 33 Critic Reviews
Positive:
27
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The year's best romantic drama. Read full review
90
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Curran, his actors and screenwriter Ron Nyswaner have made an old-fashioned melodramatic epic that, as steeped as it is in the language and tradition of old movies, is never less than thrummingly alive. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarrit Ingman
Acted with such venomous restraint that it hurts to watch. Read full review
88
PremiereEthan Alter
If The Painted Veil ultimately lacks some of the novelty and ambition of the year's best pictures, it still ranks as one of 2006's quiet gems. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The Painted Veil is a welcome addition to the slate of holiday movies, particularly for those drawn to intriguing tales of multi-dimensional characters in exotic settings. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
The Painted Veil is rich with history and heartbreak. It's stirring stuff. Read full review
83
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
No one has caught the pride, remorse and pain of an unloved and possibly unlovable husband better than Edward Norton in The Painted Veil. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The always surprising Watts creates a woman at once contemporary and retro. And Norton, as a producer as well as star, concedes enough space for Schreiber and the effortlessly fascinating Jones to earn their own spotlights. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The Painted Veil has the power and intimacy of a timeless love story. By all means, let it sweep you away. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
A lot takes place during The Painted Veil's two-hour running length, but most of what happens occurs within the hearts and minds of the leads. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
John Curran's pretty melodrama rubs off a few of the barbed edges from W. Somerset Maugham's 1925 novel about love and infidelity in a time of cholera, but no matter: the centerpiece is Naomi Watts' outstanding portrayal of an adulteress redeemed. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
The Painted Veil may begin too slowly, but it also ends too soon. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
The Chinese locations ache with beauty. And when Watts and Norton focus, intently, on Maugham's often dazzlingly vindictive characters, The Painted Veil really does feel like a story worth filming a third time. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It's by far the most faithful of the three versions, and beyond this integrity it also offers an ensemble of graceful performances and an epic evocation of 1920s China -- though, like its predecessors, it's far from a perfect crystallization of the novel. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldConnie Ogle
Norton isn't the first guy who comes to mind when you think ''period piece,'' but he's starred in two such films this year (in addition to The Painted Veil, he stars in "The Illusionist"), and he is terrific in both. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
The movie has a lush mysteriousness that represents a bygone, almost antique style of romanticism. It bears almost no resemblance to the current crop of mostly rat-a-tat movies. To view it is to enter a time warp, and there is some pleasure in stepping back into the languor. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
The film is unusual in that it is a co-production with the Chinese. Whatever difficulties this imposed on the Western filmmakers, the reward is a period film that feel authentic to its time and place. Read full review
70
Village VoiceElla Taylor
Bolstered by a strong ensemble-- "Infamous's" Toby Jones as a deputy commissioner gone native, and a wonderfully wrinkled Diana Rigg as a Mother Superior, speaking up for disillusioned decency--and by the ecstatic cinematography of Stuart Dryburgh, The Painted Veil lifts Maugham's story clear of its prissy, attenuated spirituality, and into genuine passion. Read full review
70
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
Whether through craft or constitution, Mr. Norton invests Walter with a petty cruelty that makes his character’s emotional thaw and Kitty’s predicament all the more poignant. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
This handsome period drama is a big step up for director John Curran (We Don't Live Here Anymore), who shot in China with predominantly Chinese crews. Norton and Schreiber seem too American to be English colonials, but Watts navigates a challenging transformation (in a role first played by Greta Garbo in 1934. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
The movie makes for a good old-fashioned wide-screen wallow. Norton isn’t remotely credible, but Toby Jones is dandy as a sleazeball with a core of decency, and Watts is so open, so soulfully petulant, so transcendentally pretty, that even Maugham might reconsider the pleasures of the flesh. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
While the film remains intelligent and transporting, a gorgeous travelogue into another time and place, it nonetheless feels like it's going through the motions, applying period gloss to a story that needs to be more tactile. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
Despite the rich, atmospheric textures, Norton's artificiality, Watts' unlikability, and a plot comprised of one melodramatic wrinkle after another all contrive to frustrate our empathy. Read full review
63
New York PostLou Lumenick
Despite a fierce lead performance by Naomi Watts, The Painted Veil is a quaintly bloodless, picture-postcard adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's 1925 China-set novel - more Merchant Ivory than David Lean. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The whole affair seems curiously bloodless and often more torpid than torrid. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Curran is a talented director, especially where his actors are concerned. His previous movie, "We Don't Live Here Anymore," an adaptation of two Andre Dubus stories, was another literary adultery drama featuring Watts. The Painted Veil doesn't achieve the fire that characterized that film. Read full review
63
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
The result is a beautiful painting come to stately, intermittent life. Read full review
60
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Intelligent scripting, solid thesping and eye-catching location shooting aren't enough to make a compelling modern film of The Painted Veil. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
The Painted Veil has all the elements in place to be a great epic, but it fails to connect, to paraphrase Maugham's contemporary E.M. Forster, the prose with the passion. It's impeccable, but leaves you cold. Read full review
60
EmpireAngie Errigo
Handsomely crafted, with meticulous performances, yet it plays out drily and in monotone. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Terrific actors give glum performances.
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
The result is a movie that feels weirdly disconnected from reality. Read full review
50
Film ThreatMatthew Sorrento
Overall, Norton's effect and Watts' able portrayal are not enough to move the misogyny of the narrative. Read full review
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