I watched this movie at Amy's and absolutely loved it!!!! You should all go and watch the preview right now!! Really, I mean it! Here's the link. So good. It's based on a Somerset Maugham book and set in the 1920's.
Oh, it's PG-13. Definitely an adult movie. Partial nudity--think Dances With Wolves and you have about the same thing in this movie. 
So here's the beginning of the story for those of you who won't watch the trailer. Dr. Walter Fane, a bacteriologist working in Shanghai, falls in love with socialite, spoiled, shallow Kitty while on leave to London. She marries him due to family pressure..jpg)
She's completely unhappy and bored in Shanghai.
Then she meets this guy, a married British diplomat, and has an affair, which her husband finds out about. 
Walter gives her an ultimatum: accompany him to the Chinese interior to assist with a cholera epidemic relief effort for which he has volunteered, or face a divorce on the grounds of her adultery. He basically does this as a way to punish Kitty, and is hoping neither of them will make it out alive. Anyway, I won't tell anymore, but the tagline is: "Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people."The scenery alone is worth watching the movie for. The soundtrack is beautiful too. I want to watch it again right now.
2 comments:
Oooo!!!! Looks like a really good movie. I have added to my list to see. However, I need to MAKE some time to see this really long list of mine. THanks for the Review. Keep them coming.
Hmm. Kammers--I think I overexpected on this movie because of what you told me about it. You said it was almost as good as Washington Square. Since Washington Square is my second favorite movie of all time, I thought this one was going to be superb. But . . . it wasn't. It needed to be four hours long, and it was only two hours, and that was frustrating. I wanted to see more of her being a spoiled brat, I wanted to see more of her being bored and misunderstood in Shanghai, I wanted to see how the affair developed, I wanted to see her husband trying desperately in all the wrong ways to make her happy so that when he gets mad we can understand better his sense of victimhood, and I really, really wanted to see more of him interacting with the orphans and sick people and have LOTS more of their relationship deepen and have them come to admire each other for the good qualities they did have.
Remember how you said in the book she went back to London and was the same--that makes more sense almost. In the movie she came to appreciate how others viewed her husband, and she tried to help out because she was bored and frustrated and unhappy. But he started to love her again because she was doing things and showing interest in things because she had no other options. She told him not to imagine she had good qualities that she didn't have, and I think he was still guilty of that at the end.
I think I need to read the book. However, I will say that the acting was fabulous, the scenery incredible, the soundtrack beautiful, and the story line great--if you spend lots of time the next day imagining all the things you wished they had put in but left out.
Favorite part: when she's playing the piano and letting the kids bang on the piano and the whole scene is rather chaotic and un-nunlike and he watches because there she really is displaying how her personality could be good. Reminded me of Kayli a bit.
That's all I have to say here, but if you want to call me I wouldn't be opposed to rehashing it all again! :)
Post a Comment