Chichester Cinema at New Park
This Must be the Place
Oddball retired rock star Cheyenne (Sean Penn) goes on a rambling road trip across the USA in search of someone his father had been trying to find.
Sean Penn is simply astonishing here, playing Cheyenne, a retired, reclusive and oddball rock star living just outside Dublin. His father's serious illness forces Cheyenne reluctantly back to America, and onwards to an unusual, offbeat cross-country road trip, in search of someone and something of purpose in his stalled life.
‘This Must Be the Place’ has a picaresque feel, studded with idiosyncratic encounters, powerful vignettes and wonderful cameos (including one from David Byrne, who also co-wrote the wonderful eclectic roots-and-rock soundtrack). Pleasantly echoing movies like ‘Paris, Texas’ and ‘True Stories’, ‘This Must Be the Place’ also benefits from a sharp, confident script full of warmth, smart dialogue and, occasionally, laugh-out-loud humour.
After a series of impressive Italian films, including the critically lauded ‘Il Divo’, director Paolo Sorrentino expands his global horizons to impressive effect with this, his first English-language film, stylishly shot in Ireland and the USA which was in competition in Cannes last year. The supporting cast includes Judd Hirsch, Frances McDormand and Harry Dean Stanton.
Italy · 
France · 
Ireland · 2011 · Paolo Sorrentino · 119min
