Common Sense Note

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.

Sexual Content

Adulterous affair shown in tense, passionate, short scenes (passionate embracing under covers, covert flirtations); heavy drinking leads to Kitty and Walter's sexual encounter one night in China (his bare bottom is visible as he gets out of bed in the morning); Waddington has a young lover.

Violence

Cholera wreaks havoc on victims -- some effects revealed in brief, graphic images; a group of men chases Kitty and she falls, runs, and is finally trapped by the group; her bodyguard fires his gun; some fighting when infected refugees attempt to enter the village; flyers call for "death to foreign invaders."

Language

Very mild: one use of "damn," and several uses of "god."

Social Behavior

A spoiled young woman commits adultery, then redeems herself by caring for victims of disease, including her husband.

Consumerism

Not applicable

Drugs / Tobacco / Alcohol

Social drinking (on occasion to drunkenness); cigarette smoking; Kitty and Walter have "crippling" hangovers after a night of drinking; Waddington and his girlfriend smoke something narcotic.