Review of This Must Be the Place (2011) by Felicity L — 19 Apr 2012

Oh, I so wanted to love this film. In the end, I only can say I liked it. It was stylish, the music was great, the character acting was flawless (oh, Sean Penn better go down as one of the greats in this regard!), and it held my interest for nearly 2 hours, so I definitely liked it.

There were even some truly great moments, mostly involving screen chemistry or subtle character-based humour (for example, the relationship between Penn and McDormand is superbly acted and wholly believable, full of wit and tenderness).

I think what stopped this from being a great film, for me, was the lack of direction in the plot and the somewhat heavy-handed repetition of metaphors designed to ram home that this is, indeed, the coming of age story of an aging rock star who for all purposes remained a teenager most of his life.

There were too many sub-plots that were left unexplained, so that they became a distraction rather than adding. There were also loose threads in the main plot - the relationship between Condon and Penn could have been resolved more for my taste, for example.