It's a wallow and I confess to wholeheartedly enjoying the plunge.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 8, 2008

John Curran controls the redemptive spirit of Maugham's book with merciful restraint, and gets excellent performances all round.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 27, 2007

The problem isn't that it's painful to endure, but that it's a rather easier watch than it should be.

| Apr 27, 2007

Combine a strong-limbed narrative about marital frustration with a painstaking account of the British imperial presence in 1920s China.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 27, 2007

If the cholera doesnâ(TM)t get you, the dialogue will.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 27, 2007

Overall this is a satisfyingly slow-burning romance, beautifully scored and acted.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 24, 2007

The production values are characteristically sumptuous, William Daniels' photography is lustrous, and Boleslawski directs with suitable flair.

| Apr 20, 2007

Handsomely crafted, with meticulous performances, yet it plays out drily and in monotone.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 20, 2007

| Original Score: B | Feb 9, 2007

| Original Score: 3/6 | Feb 3, 2007

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.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Jan 10, 2007

Sweeping vistas, period-piece sets, impeccable literary source, a little stolid at times, but ultimately quite impressive.

Full Review | Jan 8, 2007

The movie makes for a good old-fashioned wide-screen wallow.

Full Review | Jan 6, 2007

The movie is not grim, even as it endangers a wise nun and her gaggle of orphans in its most unfortunate melodramatic moments. Rather, it suggests the possibility of mutual healing, of people working together in love.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 4, 2007

Theirs may be a relationship built upon all of the wrong building blocks, and the things they do to one another might be at times far too horrible, but in the end these travails make them better people.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 30, 2006

The acting is quite splendid, especially in the vicinity of the quite splendid Watts.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 30, 2006

The Painted Veil recalls an earlier era of film direction, when movies moved rather than manipulated and craft superseded special effects.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 29, 2006

A thoughtful and beautifully mounted story for grown-ups, The Painted Veil brings the quiet pleasures of a fine novel, showing us that the world's complicated geography is no match for the terrain of the human heart.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 29, 2006

The Painted Veil does what a romantic drama needs to do. It testifies to love as the great educator.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Dec 29, 2006

The Painted Veil is rich with history and heartbreak. It's stirring stuff.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 29, 2006