Sean Penn plays John Smith, a.k.a. Cheyenne, a Robert Smith-like former pop star with wild black hair, black mascara around his piercing blue eyes and a trepidatious mouth finely-etched in red lipstick. He has been out of the music business (and, indeed, absent from the mainstream of life) for 20 years, secluded in his Dublin mansion after two kids killed themselves while listening to his forlorn songs. Upon learning that his once-estranged, recently-deceased father was a victim of the Nazi atrocities of World War II, he consults with a Nazi hunter and embarks on a mission to kill the SS officer still living in the United States. Director Paolo Sorrentino, who also co-authored the screenplay with Umberto Contarello, is tantalized by offbeat humor so low-keyed it sometimes passes for pathos; he's also enamored of faces, and he allows Penn lots of screen-time (too much time, one may argue) for the actor to work his soulful stare into the camera. Penn doesn't quite work his way into the viewer's heart, however, and this is the fault of the filmmaker, who unfolds his highly unlikely story very slowly and with a great deal of artistic flourish (i.e., pretension). Cinematographer Luca Bigazzi's camera swoops and glides around barren landscapes and empty rooms with amusingly smooth panache, but the audience isn't picking up on anything substantial except for the technique. Penn goes out on a limb with his performance--talking in a prissy-timid yet direct way that recalls Andy Warhol's pattern of speech--but, in the end, the role is a costume, and many other actors could have played John Smith--and perhaps improved upon it. Sorrentino wants to make us laugh and squirm and take pause. He wants to break our hearts over the course of the lead character's picaresque journey, but there's no truth in it. *1/2 from ****

Cheyenne (Sean Penn) is a weird looking retired rock star living in Dublin. He spends his days hanging out with his young friend Mary (Eve Hewson, Bono's daughter) trying to set her up with a straight laced guy working at the mall. After the death of his father whom he hasn't talked to in 30 years, he finds that he's been hunting a little known Auschwitz guard named Aloise Lange. So he decides to continue the hunt himself.There is nothing wrong with weird, and I like Sean Penn's odd looking soft spoken ex-rocker character. I like his relationship with Mary. It's funny that he keeps trying to set her up with somebody who has nothing in common with her. Then it takes a turn into the surreal.It's like they abandoned a good movie to do another movie. All the characters in the first act are basically dropped once he goes on the Nazi hunt. The nice semi-father-daughter relationship is dropped. The wife is dropped. The final reveal is kinda interesting, but it's not worth the lost opportunities of good character relationships.

Set in both Ireland and the continental United States, This Must Be the Place is a sweetly weird meditation on love and death. The protagonist, Cheyenne (in a standout performance by Sean Penn), is equal parts glam-and-gloom rocker and modern-day mystic, offering, through dialogue, insights into the human condition without overstepping into the territory of pretension. Sorrentino's direction is exquisite here, as is his timing. The humor balances out the despair at just the right moments; the pacing of the film feels balanced, as well. In addition, Byrne's score is both eerie and warming (and adding Will Oldham always brings positive results).This is a film that poses the question, "How do we make right the wrongs from the past?" and genuinely attempts to answer it with a unique perspective that doesn't rely on conventions or expectations. It's one of those cases where the correct mixture of people got together and made a memorable piece of art that reminds us how to feel.

It's very difficult to get a handle on Sean Penn's aging rocker character. One thinks he has fried his brain. He speaks and acts slower than anyone I have ever seen. He looks the same as he did in the 80s, including makeup, but has lost interest in his music.Cheyenne (Penn) is married to Jane (Frances McDormand). They have been together for 35 years. Not only is this the opposite of what one would expect of a rock star, but she works as a firefighter. No, they are not broke, it's just what she does.The two of them are surrounded by some interesting characters in a film that moves at a snail's pace.You never really know where it is going, but at the end you realize that it was good for Cheyenne to get out of his world and grow up.