The Beautiful Country Release Date: May 13, 2005 Starring: Nick Nolte, Damien Nguyen, Bai Ling, Tim Roth Directed by: Hans Petter Moland GLENN KENNY'S REVIEW (posted 5/12/05)
One side effect of checking out this very worthwhile film is that after seeing it you won’t feel inclined to complain about your own life for at least a month. (For one thing, unlike you or me, none of the main characters in this movie ever even get the chance to, say, go see a movie.) Damien Nguyen plays Binh, the son of a Vietnamese mom and an American GI; we learn early in the film that the nickname for such half-breeds translates to “lower than dirt.” A series of incredibly dire events, rendered with a quiet that makes them all the more excruciating, compels Binh to take his half-brother on a boat to try to make it to America; instead, he lands in a Malaysian refugee camp where, with the help of a self-described soul-dead fallen woman (Bai Ling), he makes another stab at getting to the U.S. to find his father. Although it’s in Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin, and English, this picture is actually for the most part a Norwegian production, directed by Hans Petter Moland. The continuation of Binh’s woes and his eventual reconciling with his roots is depicted with a clear-eyed approach that builds considerable emotional resonance at the end.
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