The title of "The Beautiful Country," an earnestly humane film by the Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland, refers both to Vietnam, where the story begins, and to the United States, where it concludes. Stuart Dryburgh's cinematography testifies to the truth of the description in both cases, beautifully capturing the humid, verdant landscape of the Vietnamese countryside and the dry, craggy plains of west Texas, as well as the bustle of Hanoi and Manhattan. The hero, Binh (Damien Nguyen), belongs to both countries, and therefore to neither. The son of a Vietnamese woman and an American G.I., he lives as a pariah in postwar Vietnam, performing menial labor and enduring the contempt of the relatives who grudgingly allow him to live with them.
The year is 1990, midway between the fall of Saigon and the present day, and Binh, like a cast-off stepchild in a Grimm fairy tale, sets off to find his way in the world. In the city, he finds his mother, Mai (Chau Thi Kim Xuan), who works as a household servant for a wealthy family, and a young half-brother named Tam (Tran Dang Quoc Thinh). The victory of Communism has apparently not entirely done away with class divisions, and Mai is bullied by the imperious lady of the house and manhandled by her loutish son. After a somewhat improbable household accident, Binh must flee again, this time to America, with Tam in tow and with Mai's faded marriage certificate as Binh's only clue to his father's whereabouts. (The opening titles offer a hint that the father will turn out to be Nick Nolte.) Binh and Tam land first at a refugee camp in Malaysia, where they befriend Ling (Bai Ling), a Chinese prostitute who accompanies them on the next leg of their journey, aboard a dilapidated boat carrying a human cargo of desperate souls from all over Asia.
The basic narrative of "The Beautiful Country" is powerful and timely. Relations between the United States and Vietnam may have evolved in the last 15 years, but the global traffic in human labor is, if anything, a more acute and pervasive problem today, and the middle section of the movie presents some of its cruelties without blinking. While Sabina Murray's screenplay is hardly immune to sentimental excess, it does, like Binh himself, succeed through a kind of clumsy stubbornness. At first, Binh does not seem especially resourceful. He is quiet and slow-moving, and the height he has inherited from his Texas father makes him look especially awkward next to his smaller Vietnamese countrymen. Mr. Nguyen is an actor of more determination than range, and he is forced to say some pretty corny lines in halting, heavily accented English. After a while, though, a patient charisma emerges, and his performance overcomes some of the obstacles placed in its path by the script.
These consist mainly of speeches that spell out themes and emotions grander than anything dramatized on screen. It is never a good thing when characters philosophize about their misery, and worse when those responsible for that misery take their turn. The worst culprit in this regard is Tim Roth, who plays the scarily soft-spoken captain of the ship that carries Ling, Tam and Binh to New York. "You have an independent mind," the captain says to Binh. "Some people admire that. I'm not one of them."
Still, 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. Its best parts are not the overwrought, underwritten scenes in which Binh and Ling pour out their hearts in English that is meant to be all the more poetic for missing articles and auxiliary verbs, but rather those quieter moments that light upon odd, telling details. In their cargo hold, for example, the migrants pass the time by conducting a tournament, complete with side bets, in which contestants compete to see who can rattle off more brand names, sports teams and other useful bits of contemporary American commercial jargon.
Mr. Nolte, appearing in a few scenes at the end, brings a rugged gravity to the story's gentle, elliptical conclusion. Like much else in the film, the reunion between Binh and his father exists on the far edge of credibility, but its overall delicacy and sincerity of feeling make its faults forgivable. Which is fitting enough, since forgiveness, after all, is both the movie's subject and its guiding spirit.
"The Beautiful Country" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has some violence and strong language.
The Beautiful Country
Opens today in New York and Los Angeles.
Directed by Hans Petter Moland; written (in English and Vietnamese, with English subtitles) by Sabina Murray, based on a story by Ms. Murray and Lingard Jervey; director of photography, Stuart Dryburgh; edited by Wibecke Ronseth; music by Zbigniew Preisner; production designer, Karl Juliusson; produced by Edward R. Pressman, Terrence Malick, Petter J. Borgli and Tomas Backstrom; released by Sony Pictures Classics. Running time: 125 minutes. This film is rated R.
WITH: Nick Nolte (Steve), Tim Roth (Captain Oh), Bai Ling (Ling), Temuera Morrison (Snakehead), Damien Nguyen (Binh), Tran Dang Quoc Thinh (Tam) and Chau Thi Kim Xuan (Mai).
