This Must Be the Place (2011)

Directer: Paolo Sorrentino
Writer: Paolo Sorrentino
Starring: Sean Penn, Frances McDormand, Judd Hirsch 
Rated: R

This film is a giant pistachio. But more on that later.

A very talented chameleon, Sean Penn has taken on a role big enough to support his gifts, but one that unfortunately is stationed squared in the middle of Poserville. I have been eyeing this movie for years but have never gotten around to seeing it, and now that I have I wish I had been satisfied merely with the trailer and film poster. Those two things give you all you want to see while leaving out the extra hour of nonsense in between.

Penn plays Cheyenne, a now retired rock star with the look of Robert Smith and the voice of a soft spoken Truman Capote. Having left Over the Hill years ago, Cheyenne now spends his time in his giant manor in Dublin playing handball with his firefighter wife (Frances McDormand), or outside of it shopping at malls, buying frozen dinners at the supermarket, or working at fixing dates with a handsome waiter and the troubled teen he has taken under his wing. He no longer plays music, but he hasn't grown up.

His finds purpose, however, when his estranged Hasidic Jewish father dies, and Cheyenne learns how ruthlessly the man was treated in Auschwitz during the Second World War. Taking up one man's quest, Cheyenne travels the country hunting down the Nazi who humiliated the man that never loved him. Once more we must suffer the ever-enduring message that the road is transformative, as our fragile little rock star faces his fears travelling via planes and cars to reach that final sense of closure.

The first thirty minutes or so are interesting enough, as we are introduced to a peculiarly childlike man wearing lipstick who has his nails painted while sitting in some crummy diner. Any average person walks down the street and their heads turn at seeing a man in makeup, or I suppose anyone who dresses "goth". I should know, I've caught the attention of many a passersby for years doing the exact same thing. Italian writer-director Paolo Sorrentino relies too heavily on that shock factor though, expecting the audience to remain perplexed  at the sight of a 50-year-old man wearing a black, furry hoodie contrasted against a clean, pretty background, hoping it will last long enough to squeeze out chuckles for nearly two hours.

The entire movie seems to be that way. There are plenty of road trip films that are endearing simply because they are so quirky--"Little Miss Sunshine", "Y tu mama tambien", even "Rain Man"--but the power behind those successes fell on the principal that their peculiarities seemed organic. "This Must Be the Place" is quite the opposite. The whole thing seems so much a mash-up of any and everything that Sorrentino finds weird or cool that one forgets to care about Cheyenne's quest to posthumously repair his broken relationship with his father.

Everything is fragmentary and episodic, full of characters who are far less interesting than Sorrentino believes them to be, and events which are at the very least confusing. I found myself more than once scratching my head trying to figure out what was going and how it justified its gross running time. What on earth does a bison on a porch, the man who invented luggage with wheels, or a massive beer bottle being erected on the side of a highway have to do with an effeminate musician hunting down a Nazi? When I put it as concisely as that the film becomes even that much more frustrating.

So, back to that first enigmatic statement. The film has a scene in which Cheyenne pauses his journey to examine a piece of public art--the world's largest pistachio. I watched that scene and saw the whole film; a statue like that is bizarre at first glance, bemusing at a second glance, and angering at a third. Perhaps if Sorrentino spent the time trying to establish why we should care about Cheyenne and his quest as opposed to simply relying on cheap gimmicks he would have had a piece of public art worth displaying in a museum as opposed to the side of the road in Bumblescum, Nowhere.

1.5/4