What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that this drama based on a 1925 novel isn't for most kids, despite its PG-13 rating. It's a serious, often painful contemplation of marriage under duress, featuring angry arguments as well as images of suffering cholera patients. Sexual intimacy includes one early, awkward scene in which a young bride invites her husband to her bed (he's embarrassed) and a couple of adulterous situations (a couple in bed, hiding from the jilted husband), as well as a couple of drunken scenes (in one, a white British man admires his much younger Chinese girlfriend; in another, a married couple has sex, with brief shots of naked bottoms and thighs). Characters drink, and couple of supporting players smoke cigarettes.
- Families can talk about how Walter and Kitty end up appreciating each other's strengths and forgiving each other's failings. How do their circumstances -- surrounded by acute suffering -- encourage them to see past themselves and, as a result, see themselves more clearly? What are the movie's themes? Which characters are redeemed, and how? How does it stress the importance of communication (and show the consequences of a lack of communication)? What's lacking in Kitty and Walter's marriage? What makes a marriage good or bad?