‘Beyond Utopia’ reviews: Madeleine Gavin’s ‘harrowing,’ ‘nerve-shredding’ documentary follows families escaping oppression in North Korea

Vincent Mandile
·5 min read
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On October 23, 2023, Fathom Events and Roadside Attractions released “Beyond Utopia,” the story of several families attempting to escape oppression in North Korea, revealing a world most of us have never seen. Directed by Madeleine Gavin, the film was recently nominated for four Critics Choice Documentary Awards including Best Documentary Feature and Best Director.

“Beyond Utopia” won the Audience Award at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival before its two-day release in the United States this week. A wider release is expected before year’s end, qualifying it for the 2024 Academy Awards. The film currently holds fresh with a 100% rating from both critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. Read our review round-up below. 

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Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com calls the documentary “Instantly essential,” adding, “Everything in the film happened, including hidden camera footage of a family trying to defect from North Korea, a process that involves crossing a guarded river, climbing a mountain, and then traveling through China, Vietnam, and Laos—three countries where you can be captured and killed—to the relative safety of Thailand. At any point on this journey, you can be captured not only by authorities but by everyday people who will then sell you to traffickers. I’ve rarely seen anything as genuinely harrowing as what happens to the family this film follows over this impossible trek, including children and an elderly woman who is so indoctrinated by North Korean brainwashing she questions what they’re even doing.”

Tomris Laffly of Harper’s Bazaar notes, “This year’s Sundance attendees met an unsung hero in a Seoul-based religious figure called Pastor Seungeun Kim, a fearless activist who selflessly facilities individual and family-wide escapes from North Korea. Blending historical data with real-life stories of various households attempting an impossible cloak-and-dagger journey, Madeleine Gavin’s enthralling ‘Beyond Utopia’ features some of the most astonishing verité-style footage of this year’s Sundance, following a generationally diverse group of human beings as they embark on a life-threatening journey towards a hopeful future. Unforgiving, high-stakes and clear-eyed about the devastatingly brainwashing powers of elongated oppression, ‘Beyond Utopia’ will be talked about well into the awards season with its extraordinary vision.”

Dan Fienberg of Hollywood Reporter says, “Providing the movie’s breathless spin is the escape of the five-person Ro family — two parents, a grandmother and two small daughters — who have to cross rivers, climb mountains, dodge Communist authorities and wander through darkened rainforests in search of a freedom they aren’t all sure that they want. See, the “utopia” in the documentary’s title is actually North Korea, or at least the version of North Korea that the country’s leaders and propaganda machine have crafted for those trapped within its borders. The Ro parents may be determined to give their family a better life, but with 80+ years of indoctrination or immersion in North Korea’s heavily programmed education system, grandma and the two kids require a complete readjustment of their worldview.”

Amber Wilkinson of Eye for Film writes, “Beyond being nailbiting – a feeling driven by Hyun Seok Kim’s ‘heartbeat’ score that quickens our own – Gavin’s film is also an eye-opener, which helps explain why it won the audience award at this year’s Sundance. Chief among those offering insight into living under the despotic Kim regime is defector Hyeonseo Lee, whose book ‘The Girl With Seven Names’ documents her experience. She talks about the indoctrination of living in North Korea and the revelations she experienced on leaving it behind. Her reminiscences, along with others and footage smuggled from the country, range from the chilling sight of public executions to the ridiculous minutiae of ‘poo collection’ and children’s books referring constantly to ‘American bastards.’ These latter observations, while providing a little light relief in what is a very serious film, nevertheless also highlight the degree to which the dictatorship controls every aspect of life in the country.”

Fionnuala Halligan of Screen International states, “It’s interesting to note that while the Sundance Film Festival website talks about this film being set in ‘one of the most oppressive places on Earth,’ it never once mentions North Korea by name. Beyond Utopia is a gripping, moving, sweatily tense documentary that prises open the hidden fiefdom of Kim Jong-un through the misfortunate citizens fighting for their lives trying to escape it. Anxiety must be running high in Park City and beyond given how Sony was hacked when it dared to release a comedy gently mocking the dictator – this is a castigation. Anxiety, though, is an appropriate response to this nerve-shredding piece of work.”

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