This Must Be the Place

Overview

Writer/director Paolo Sorrentino itched to create a character based on The Cure's Robert Smith. After seeing that Smith doesn't shed his '80s goth punk gear when he leaves the stage, Sorrentino became fascinated with the idea of "a 50-year-old who still completely identified with a look which, by definition, is that of an adolescent," and all the contradictions in character it implies.

That's how we get Cheyenne (given life by Sean Penn), a former rock star who once fronted Cheyenne and the Fellows and now lives a quiet life on an Irish estate with his countervailing, down-to-earth wife (Frances McDormand). There's a little bit of Ozzy in him, too; after years taking drugs (though never booze), he moves slowly, dragging his grocery trolley behind him. He's prematurely old, but also stuck in youth. He's sweet, but petulant. He insists on living in the world the way he wants to live in it. And, yes, he still paints a red oblong over his lips and tucks his black jeans into Docs.

This Must Be the Place is a unique comedy where you laugh with someone who's slow-paced, not quick-witted, and you laugh with him. Cheyenne's sentences are a meandering journey whose end you can't envision when you're at the beginning. Or in the middle, usually. It's uniquely funny, and in a gorgeously big-hearted way. There's a couple of lines in here so hilarious and inimitable they alone are worth watching the film for.

There are a few other things This Must Be the Place does extraordinarily well. Given its character's history, there's a rightful appreciation for music, including a soundtrack by David Byrne and Will Oldham and a guest appearance by Byrne where he performs the film's title track in concert. There are gorgeous visual compositions and a real sense for how bewildering the world can be. The film gets beautiful early on, and it would remain so if the plot didn't intrude in a sudden and forced way. After Cheyenne makes it to New York too late to farewell his estranged, ailing father, he is bequeathed the man's detailed diaries and learns of what he went through during the Holocaust. To right past wrongs, he takes off on a quest ('road trip') across the US to find the Nazi responsible for his father's torment.

This Must Be the Place gets into trouble once the unlikely truck gets on the road and its wheels grind stuck in a big ditch of twee. A fey man with bird's nest hair does not, in any universe, have sweet, revealing conversations with tattooed giants in dive bars in Bad Axe, Michigan. It's a particular kind of blind whimsy to which we've started to bristle, and it's a big part of why the narrative loses its energy just when it should be picking up speed. 'Cheyenne: Nazi Hunter' was always an unconvincing premise, and the film doesn't quite fuse its two big ideas successfully.

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