A delicate yet sweeping remake of the 1934 Garbo picture based on Somerset Maugham’s novella about the unexpected path of a young socialite.
Beautiful and unhappy, selfish and vain, Kitty (Naomi Watts) marries a man she does not love in order to escape her restrictive family life. Quiet, serious Walter Fane (Edward Norton) is a bacteriologist, who moves them to Shanghai in order to pursue his career.
Bored and restless, Kitty embarks on an affair with English Vice Consul Charles Townsend (Liev Schreiber). When Walter learns of their indiscretion, he seeks his revenge by taking an arduous job in a remote village where there’s a dangerous cholera outbreak and little to no contact with the outside world. There, unexpectedly, their new circumstances encourage them to re-evaluate their relationship and their lives.
Featuring intelligent, compassionate and graceful performances from Watts and Norton, their characters’ journey towards each other is beautifully documented against ravishing scenery, shot on location in southern rural China.
