Review of This Must Be the Place (2011) by Colm M — 06 May 2012

I HATE the poster for this film. A head shot of Sean Penn and his mane of hair, staring innocently bemused at us. It tells me NOTHING about the film bar the fact Sean Penn is in it and he'll probably be the main visual and concern for the whole indulgent thing. Nevertheless when the film started to garner mixed reviews I got curious. Sometimes films which divide turn out to be underrated and unacknowledged gems (A Dangerous Method) or sometimes they turn out to be nothing more than weak (John Carter). Unfortunately This Must Be the Place is the latter, being a terribly confused poorly made excuse for a film.

This is NOT an indie film, so don't give it any generous benefits of the doubt. It's a studio film made with a studio budget with a Hollywood A-lister starring. The fact it passed by Cannes (almost a year ago) with as little impact as a tumbleweed means it's cropping up now disguised as an independent treat, when in reality it's just a terrible misfire.

Sean Penn plays Cheyenne, a former rock star who retired from the public eye twenty years earlier and now stumbles around Dublin spending his days still donned in make-up and huge hair feeling incomplete and lost. He has a happy marriage and some slapstick friends to get him through his days. When his father dies he returns to New York, and soon embarks on a mission to finish his father's work, tracking down his Nazi tormentor from his days in a concentration camp.

Penn is fine, and gives a great performance and hats off for creating a memorable character with distinctive actions and a unique personality. The only problem is it's completely out of place with the film. Everything else is so badly done, often feeling amateur, that you'd be forgiven for thinking Penn stumbled into a transition year film project. Director Sorrentino has made some fine films and is a talent, but something has gone horribly wrong here. He frustratingly seems to be constantly narrowed into a corner where his only way out is to use a dolly shot or ignore all continuity. There's no excuse for this, it's just bad filmmaking.

The filmmakers started off with a nice vague idea, but it remained vague through execution. An Obama speech here, a Palin speech here, a distressed mother, a single mother, gun control in America. We glance a lot but the story never really tells us anything. It wants to do something but never does it. The Talking Heads song of the title is one of my favourites, adding to the pain of this. The one scene that's enjoyable is when the song is performed but even this feels staged.

Proves Penn is a great actor but needs to choose more wisely in future. Avoid avoid avoid.