To be perfectly honest, I haven't seen many Merchant-Ivory films, but if I imagined them to be of a particular shape and style, The Painted Veil would resemble their lineage. Its period-piece production is about as handsome as can be, with all of the elements working to create a believable sense of place -- in this case, a cholera-ravaged village section of 1920's China.

I don't find any one or two things particularly special about the movie to make it stand out so much other than my feeling that all of its parts run together so well -- it's an alluring, photographically sumptuous, character/story-driven film about flawed people who have made mistakes, move on to face a life-challenging situation in a foreign land, and eventually find dignity within themselves.

The two main characters are convincingly portrayed by Edward Norton, channeling both personal bitterness and moral nobility equally well, and Naomi Watts, who reminds me once again of her great acting talents. Hers is a part acted from the inside out; to play a shallow character who uncovers the depth inside her, we have to be convinced that the character has the potential for that depth, and Watts is able to do that. She's smart but superficial, and her awakening doesn't come with epiphanies but with struggle and, ultimately, a willing perseverance. And perhaps that approach, the willingness to see people as ongoing storms of ever-changing and contradicting sides, speaks to what I find so appealing about the whole movie -- that, on top of its high production value, it's singularly about the inner journeys of these two characters, and the two actors who play them are well up to the task.

Movies don't elicit sighs from me often, but for The Painted Veil I sigh.

(Released by Warner Independent Pictures and rated "PG-13" for some mature sexual situations, partial nudity, disturbing images and brief drug content.)

Review also posted at www.windowtothemovies.com.