The Painted Veil

The third film version of Maugham's 1925 novel takes some liberties and the leads can't engender much sympathy for their self-absorbed characters, although the locations are eye-catching. Flirty Kitty (Watts) impulsively marries serious bacteriologist Walter Fane (Norton) to get away from her family--far away, all the way to Shanghai. Bored, Kitty begins an affair with British consul Charlie Townsend (Schreiber); upon discovering her infidelity, Walter forces Kitty to join him in a remote area beset by a cholera outbreak, where he'll do medical research. Kitty finds herself helping out a group of nuns at their orphanage amidst the rise of Chinese nationalism (as if an epidemic and problematic marriage aren't trouble enough).