love in the time of cholera

I'm talking about the movie "The Painted Veil", not the book. I just watched this film and it depressed me. I like Edward Norton (except when he lost his mind and had an affair with Salma Hayek, what's the deal with that?). He is so appealing in a nerdy, aloof, sexy kind of way (I can't resist men with brains!). He produced "The Painted Veil", a movie based on the classic novel by W. Somerset Maugham.

It is s a love story set in the 1920s that tells the story of a young English couple, Walter, a middle class doctor / bacteriologist and Kitty, an upper-class woman. They get married for the wrong reasons (as we all are prone to do...) and relocate to Shanghai, China. There, Kitty falls in love with someone else (happens to people who get married for all the wrong reasons...). When he finds out about her affair, he volunteers for a job in a far-flung village in China ravaged by Cholera and takes Kitty along. That or an ugly divorce -- apparently, a fate worse than death (or Cholera) in the 1920s.

Their journey brings them together, and love blooms in the midst of disease and death (how romantic can this be?). This movie was beautifully made (in the genre of "The English Patient"). Love and relationships can be both tragic and meaningful. Norton and Naomi Watts absolutely glow!