This Must Be the Place. 2011. USA/Italy/France. Directed by Paolo Sorrentino. Screenplay by Sorrentino, Umberto Contarello. With Sean Penn, Frances McDormand, Judd Hirsch. 118 min.
Paolo Sorrentino’s first English-language film is well worth revisiting on the big screen, with the Italian director’s wry musings on the American cultural landscape a fitting backdrop to Sean Penn’s gutsy, fragile performance. Channeling the Cure’s Robert Smith, Penn plays an aging, addled goth rocker who embarks on a road trip to see his dying father, an Orthodox Jewish Holocaust survivor, setting in motion an almost surreal journey into the American unconscious while touching gently upon universal themes of love and loss. Cast by Laura Rosenthal, the film also features characters memorably drawn by Frances McDormand, Judd Hirsch, Harry Dean Stanton, Joyce Van Patten, and Kerry Condon, as well as a transcendent David Byrne performing his legendary Talking Heads song of the film’s title.