Nuns in the movies
Last night I watched The Painted Veil, based on M. Somerset Maugham’s novel of the same name. The book’s protagonist is a 25 year old British woman, Kitty Fane, whose husband takes her to the interior of China in the 1930s to fight a cholera epidemic (and to punish her for the extramarital affair she had with one of the British consulates in Shang-hai–Hong Kong in the novel). As part of Kitty’s experiences there, she works with a small group of French nuns at their convent/orphanage/infirmary, which has been hit hard by the epidemic and the tidal wave of orphans it leaves behind. Mother Superior, played by Diana Rigg, is sort of a spiritual guide for Kitty, who opens her eyes to her life of selfishness and re-ignites her relationship with her husband. (Or gets it started, really, since it was essentially non-existent.)
While the nuns play a much bigger part in the novel than the movie, it was nice to see a positive potrayal of nuns for once in Hollywood, even though Mother Superior confesses to being a bit naive when she joined the order in France. In the book she is much more self-sacrificing and her role in Kitty’s conversion (so to speak) is much more active. In the film her relationship with Walter almost usurps that role. But seeing the lives of service and compassion these nuns have for their Chinese brethren is inspiring to watch, and I was glad to see a positive portrayal of convent life in the movies.
