Critic Reviews

The film achieves its power through a careful gathering of crucial details, in wordless glances, cruelties of nature and of man and the relentless determination to gain the promised land.

It is a straightforward, conventional narrative, charting seemingly endless cruelty and hardship, but rewards the patient with an eloquent climactic sequence that is impossible to predict.

Versatile, highly skilled Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland's poignant drama examines the lingering effects of U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia.

Generous in spirit and fearlessly observant, this tale of an outcast Vietnamese man's journey to freedom deserves a place of honor among the great films portraying emigrant tenacity.

The script, by newcomer Sabina Murray, is occasionally cloying as the naive hero falls for a bitter prostitute (Bai Ling), but its epic tale of two cultures tragically entwined is anchored by deep and elemental emotions.

Inside the Norwegian director's glove of empathy is a fist of unappeasable anger.

The Beautiful Country might be too slow-moving for some, but it has powerful performances and a multi-layered quality. It is an epic journey worth taking.

The movie grows steadily more arresting as it goes on and saves its best parts for last.

The filmmakers bank against their impulse toward melodrama and deliver a reconciliation that is heartbreakingly understated.

Quiet, moving and beautifully shot.