“The Painted Veil,” set in the 1920s, does not rise to more than a romantic potboiler in terms of plot credibility, but such films are rather rare these days, and there is an audience for them, especially when a good cast is on hand. Naomi Watts play Kitty, a spoiled, vapid young British woman who needs to escape from domination at home and although it is not a love match, accepts the marriage proposal of Walter, an up-tight British doctor, played accordingly by Edward Norton.

But Kitty gets into a hot sexual affair with married diplomat Charlie Townsend, Liev Schreiber in a seductive mode. When Walter becomes aware of the betrayal, he punitively hustles Kitty off to China, where he has taken a post and where she at first is resentful. But Kitty learns to love Walter after all as she matures, becomes a more involved person and is tested when a cholera epidemic rages and her husband strives to save as many people as he can at risk to himself.

Toby Jones, who was so strikingly effective as Truman Capote in “Infamous,” here plays Waddington, a knowing and rather odd friend and neighbor who has a relationship with a beautiful Asian woman, a liaison that stimulates Kitty.