Review of This Must Be the Place (2011) by Dawdlingpoet — 22 Nov 2021

This is a very quirky film, with an oddball as the main character (known as Cheyenne). He is very guarded and quiet, as unlikely as that may seem given his outwardly extrovert appearance but I liked how he seemed to open up, slowly, to particular people. When he talks, he has an almost spooky or ghoulish muted tone to his voice, which of course is in contrast, as I say, to his goth rock look.

He is quite philosophical in the way he views situations he comes across, everyday or not. There is some very poignant dialogue and I loved the cinematography present, with some beautiful sunset shots. Music wise, there is quite nomadic/quiet (low tempo) folk type music played in the background at times. It'd be fair to say that Sean Penn has played some quite challenging characters in his career to date and this is very much one of them - most certainly not your overly represented average joe type persona. Of course thats no bad thing and I commend him for playing different roles. To start with, this seemed, if anything, too bizarre a film, with no obvious/clear plot direction and I couldn't help but wonder what the point was in what I was watching but as Cheyenne starts to uncover truths and embarks on his journey, it became more decidedly more meaningful. Its not the sort of film thats especially easy to understand/'get' entirely but I certainly enjoyed aspects of it and I feel it was a very quirky and arty film that is worth a watch. I admired it, even though its not at all perfect as such, its certainly a solid and different kind of a film - one I'd recommend.