Somerset Maugham's middlebrow brew of sin and redemption among colonial Brits in mid-Twenties China, where a brave bacteriologist but vindictive cuckold (Edward Norton) drags his faithless spouse (Naomi Watts) into the midst of a cholera outbreak in the backcountry. The spiritual growth of the flighty wife ("When love and duty are one," counsels the Mother Superior at the local orphanage, "then grace is within you") will restore sufficient happiness to the union, not long before its tragic end, that the husband can stop plastering down his hair and go fluffy. Directed by John Curran (We Don't Live Here Anymore, also featuring Watts), this follows after at least two other screen treatments of the novel -- the better known of which is one of the lesser Garbo vehicles -- and, for all its location shooting and its air of "independence," it's still stiff and stuffy. Much of that is intrinsic to the original author, and some of it's imported through the stagy British accents of the stars. With Liev Schreiber, Toby Jones, and Diana Rigg. (2006) — Duncan Shepherd