Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people. Based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil is a love story set in the 1920s about a young English couple, Walter (Edward Norton), a middle class doctor and Kitty (Naomi Watts), an upper class woman, who marry for the wrong reasons and relocate to Shanghai, where Kitty falls in love with someone else. When Walter uncovers her infidelity, in an act of vengeance he accepts a job in a remote village in China ravaged by a deadly epidemic, and takes her along. Their journey brings meaning to their relationship and gives them purpose in one of the most remote and beautiful places on earth.