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No consensus yet.
All Critics (85) | Top Critics (27) | Fresh (57) | Rotten (28)
Penn has created a colorful tour guide, but in "This Must Be the Place," there's no there there. Nov 21, 2012 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review…
Penn has created a colorful tour guide, but in "This Must Be the Place," there's no there there.
Joe Williams
Writer-director Paolo Sorrentino handles the story with surprising thoughtfulness. Nov 16, 2012 | Full Review…
Writer-director Paolo Sorrentino handles the story with surprising thoughtfulness.
Ben Sachs
The cast ... is outstanding, dragging the offbeat story through the occasional look-at-me distractions. Nov 15, 2012 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…
The cast ... is outstanding, dragging the offbeat story through the occasional look-at-me distractions.
Bill Goodykoontz
Although "This Must Be the Place" holds our attention, it's a little difficult to say where it's headed. Nov 15, 2012 | Rating: 3.5/4 | Full Review…
Although "This Must Be the Place" holds our attention, it's a little difficult to say where it's headed.
Roger Ebert
If you give Penn (and the movie) a chance, the character works, movingly and somewhat miraculously. Nov 9, 2012 | Rating: 4/4 | Full Review…
If you give Penn (and the movie) a chance, the character works, movingly and somewhat miraculously.
Michael O'Sullivan
The movie replaces emotional precision and intellectual honesty with syrupy sincerity and insistence. Nov 8, 2012 | Rating: 2/4 | Full Review…
The movie replaces emotional precision and intellectual honesty with syrupy sincerity and insistence.
Mick LaSalle
This Must Be the Place is somehow simultaneously heavy and light-hearted; the comic element barely there yet tangible, the starker elements significant, though not excessively dwelt upon. Jan 3, 2019 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…
This Must Be the Place is somehow simultaneously heavy and light-hearted; the comic element barely there yet tangible, the starker elements significant, though not excessively dwelt upon.
Alexandra Hayward
In a world where the useful, the functional has a place, the opposite of what is known as it, is implausible; leftover That's the state of Cheyenne. A film about nothing but meanings. [Full review in Spanish] Dec 12, 2018 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…
In a world where the useful, the functional has a place, the opposite of what is known as it, is implausible; leftover That's the state of Cheyenne. A film about nothing but meanings. [Full review in Spanish]
Guillem Martinez Oya
It's a beguilingly strange, distancing, even discombobulating venture, at times gently lyrical, at others nightmarish. May 21, 2018 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…
It's a beguilingly strange, distancing, even discombobulating venture, at times gently lyrical, at others nightmarish.
Emma Dibdin
The conceit of showing a pop-culture figure's life out of the limelight is beyond hackneyed, but the film's incongruous visual splendor and Penn's all-or-nothing commitment keep Sorrentino's unabashed folly afloat for a while. Jun 28, 2013 | Full Review…
The conceit of showing a pop-culture figure's life out of the limelight is beyond hackneyed, but the film's incongruous visual splendor and Penn's all-or-nothing commitment keep Sorrentino's unabashed folly afloat for a while.
Nicolas Rapold
Sorrentino's aggressively life-affirming movie has wormed its way into the hearts of a surprising number of usually sensible, discerning critics. Jun 20, 2013 | Full Review…
Sorrentino's aggressively life-affirming movie has wormed its way into the hearts of a surprising number of usually sensible, discerning critics.
Scott Foundas
As oddly magnetic as Sean Penn's performance is, the film seems more preoccupied with being quirky and puzzling than with telling a cohesive, satisfying story. Jan 11, 2013 | Rating: 2/5 | Full Review…
As oddly magnetic as Sean Penn's performance is, the film seems more preoccupied with being quirky and puzzling than with telling a cohesive, satisfying story.
Mike Scott
A messy movie that throws many narrative elements together without any cohesion, drifting from odd character study to hunt-the-Nazi road-movie, and it is so rambling and disjointed in its structure that it feels pointless, with Sean Penn in an extremely annoying performance.
Super Reviewer
Inert and disappointing
A retired Goth pop star tracks down a Nazi who oppressed his deceased father. The script is a bit wonky, but Sean Penn has some great moments in a unique against-type role as the effeminate, tormented ex-rocker.
Meandering and episodic 'This Must Be The Place' is Italian born Paolo Sorrento's first foray into English language cinema and the result is interesting if inconsistent. Playing out as a coming of age/road movie hybrid the story charts aged goth Cheyenne's across America is search of a nazi war criminal responsible for humiliating his father. As Cheyenne's journey progresses it becomes more strange, indulging in quirkiness at the cost of story and somewhat isolating itself from the viewer. Tonally the film is inconsistent, with moments of comedy turning into those of drama in a jarring fashion. Despite its problems the film occasionally reaches the level of intrigue it strives for and Penn's Gothic performance is oddly endearing if a little tiresome.
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