Canter Bridge

This exceptional film adaptation of Somerset Maugham’s novel of the same title deserves more credit than the box office paid it a decade ago.

Set amid the Nationalist Revolution in China (and filmed in that country) in the 1920s, the plot teeters atop the the wall of emotional and political meltdown. Ed Norton (as the bacteriologist Walter Fane) and Liev Schreiber (as the philandering British consul Charles Townsend) turn in solid performances, but in this reviewer’s eyes it is Naomi Watts who shines as Kitty Garston. Ignored by the husband who prefers the thrill of infectious diseases to his hot wife, she turns to Townsend and his bed for comfort.

The film splits time between early-20th-century Shanghai and the remote location to which Dr. Fane compels his adulterous wife to follow him as punishment. The camera captures both venues sumptuously, but it is the peaked landscape of the countryside that the visuals reach their dazzling potential, all amid the human chaos of a ravaging cholera epidemic.

When the bored Kitty finds both her place and her passion in tending to the children of a Catholic orphanage, Norton’s Dr. Fane realizes what he has lost. His cruelty towards Kitty melts and love is re-born, just in time for cholera to snatch him away from Kitty before they can reinitiate the life that might have been if  hearts were softer and memories shorter. Her chance encounter with Townsend on a London street years later is a jaw-dropping emotional finale.

The Painted Face is a strong story well told, well spoken, well shot, and well framed by a gorgeous score.

What, no Oscars? 2006 must have been some year at the movies.