This is Sean Penn as you haven’t seen him before: as an aging, washed up rocker who looks a lot like Robert Smith of The Cure, whose character is actually looking to track down a Nazi war criminal. Now that’s a premise that’s hard to resist. But it’s also one that’s hard to live up to. And yet, This Must Be The Place (the title of a Talking Heads’ song) works. The allure of 80-90s rock and Sean Penn’s persona do create instant curiosity, but it’s through the well-developed characters that the film manages to retain your attention, while plowing through some pretty heavy stuff.
Former 80s rock legend Cheyenne (Penn) retires with his wife Jane (Frances Macdormand) and his younger friend Mary (Eve Hewson) to Dublin. And yet, the goth look, complete with snow white foundation, black eyeliner and red lips, remains intact. Cheyenne is not particularly happy about his boring bourgeois existence. And after receiving a phone call saying that his father, with who he hasn’t spoken for his entire adult life, is on his death bed, Cheyenne jumps at the chance to leave Ireland for the first time in 30 years. He makes it to New York too late but does discover that his father had spent his life tracking down an ex-Nazi hiding in the USA. So begins Cheyenne’s road trip through America.
Director Paolo Sorrentino (Il Divo, 2008) isn’t really interested in making a movie about sex, drugs and rock n’ roll—nor one about Nazi war criminals for that matter. The focus—as with all road movies—is self-discovery. The soundtrack supports Sorrentino’s endeavor to perfection, and David Byrne, front man of American post punk band Talking Heads even stars as himself singing the band’s iconic song “This Must Be The Place.” (Byrne was also the film’s musical director.) The result is a moody, meditative piece that’s not without humor. It’s a seductive film that has you guessing at every turn, and enjoying the sum of its details rather than any taught narrative arch.