This Must Be the Place

Sean Penn plays Cheyenne, a retired rock star living in Dublin who has never taken off the makeup or the hairspray. When his father dies he travels across America to find the war criminal who persecuted him in a camp. Cheyenne's look comes directly from Robert Smith of The Cure. Sorrentino got the idea watching the band in 2008, drawn to a fifty-year-old still fully identified with an appearance that is, by definition, adolescent. David Byrne wrote the music and appears in the film, and the title is a Talking Heads song. Byrne co-wrote the original songs with Will Oldham, and they are sung by Michael Brunnock rather than by Penn. It was Sorrentino's first English-language film, made for 28 million dollars, competed at Cannes in 2011 and grossed 11.6 million worldwide. Reviews split. Who it is for: viewers who enjoy Sorrentino's formal play and strange road movies. Who it is not for: anyone who needs a consistent tone. The film moves from comedy to a reckoning with the Holocaust and does not always keep its footing.