The Painted Veil

AMG Review of The Painted Veil

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

Alexandre Desplat's score for director John Curran's film adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novel The Painted Veil, about a British couple who travel to China in the 1920s, is not specifically Oriental in tone. But it does have a sense of reserve and a contemplative feel much of the time. The dominant soloist is young Chinese classical pianist Lang Lang, although Vincent Segal's electric cello is also given generous solo space. Desplat provides a lovely "River Waltz," played both orchestrally and as a piano piece by Lang. "The Water Wheel" is a percussion-heavy cue with Desplat himself contributing. (He also plays flutes, piano, and keyboards himself on the soundtrack.) "Cholera," a cue coming toward the film's climax, has the repetitive rhythm of a Philip Glass piece, but that's as assertive as Desplat gets in a score that manages to maintain a mood simultaneously restrained and ominous.