Metacritic 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.

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.

Standout performance is by Nolte who, in the final 20 minutes, draws on a deep reservoir of playing broken romantic heroes to portray Binh's father. The subtle, resonant scenes between the two men are worth the price of admission.

It is hard not to admire the independence and ambition of The Beautiful Country, even if the film does fall short of its epic intentions.

Bai Ling plays a resourceful prostitute from a Malaysian refugee camp who grows harder and more alienated by the day. Nick Nolte, Tim Roth and Temuera Morrison offer strong supporting performances.

A gorgeous film, framed with an eye that makes every country seem beautiful in one way or another. It's probably fitting that the human element seems fragile and flat by comparison, but the contrast leaves Beautiful Country fairly bland.