This Must Be the Place France, Ireland, Italy, USA 2011 – 119min.

Movie Rating

This Must Be the Place

Movie Rating: Agathe Tissier

A retired heavy metal rocker – Sean Penn – searches for the Nazi who humiliated his father.

Cheyenne (Sean Penn), a dopey, retired heavy metal rocker, lives the quiet life with his wife (Frances McDormand) in a luxurious Irish manor. As he spends his days at the cafeteria of a local shopping center with a young goth girl, he learns his estranged father is dying in New York. Arriving too late, he decides to go after the Nazi who humiliated his father in a concentration camp, and who is reportedly in the US. So begins a road movie across America, a journey of self-discovery.

Made up like a drag queen who got ready in the dark without a mirror, Sean Penn's decidedly odd man-child is charmingly sympathetic and his relationship with his fire-fighter wife is astonishingly credible, given his ageless, sexless vibe. Penn's character drags his depression along behind him as he slowly realizes he'll have to grow up one day in this clever mix of heavy subject matter and borderline burlesque, directed by Paolo Sorrentino, the Italian director of Il divo.

07.06.2021

3

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madamcritic

12 years ago

Sean Penn is NOT "Hollywood-sy" & takes on roles which are difficult. As Cheyene he portrayed a real "has been" - been that, done that. This guy can act!


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