This must be the place - Sean Penn

py2006

Notice the Blanchardstown Shopping centre near the beginning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zppYSFPKrQ8

Looks an awful movie to me.

DrumSteve

py2006 wrote: »

Notice the Blanchardstown Shopping centre near the beginning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zppYSFPKrQ8

Looks an awful movie to me.

Ha I'm actually in this film at the start... I'm playing the drums at the end of the escalator.

Interested to see it now.

frag420

Wow.........this looks good!!

Sad Professor

"I'm looking for a Nazi war criminal from Auschwitz."

lol. Looks hilarious.

Mickeroo

looks great, good to see Penn doing something different for him.

Decuc500

Well so far Paolo Sorrentino has made really interesting and stylish Italian films so I'm looking forward to this.

Nolanger

That waitress is the girl who got attacked by Colin Farrell at the start of Intermission?

johnny_ultimate

Unusual looking film. Could be interesting if it's played tongue-in-cheek throughout.

Sean Penn kind of annoyed me in the trailer though. Dangerous chance of the performance being overwrought and gimmicky.

JP Liz V1

Nolanger wrote: »

That waitress is the girl who got attacked by Colin Farrell at the start of Intermission?

Yes Kerry Condon

kraggy

Bonos daughter is in it as well.

What's the story with it, is part of it actually set in Dublin or just filmed there?

DrumSteve

kraggy wrote: »

Bonos daughter is in it as well.

What's the story with it, is part of it actually set in Dublin or just filmed there?

Yeah at the start of the film he is living in Dublin.

Miguel_Sanchez

I'll go see it if only because of the Talking Heads title and to play spot the location.

Rabidlamb

Sean Penn playing an aging goth rock star holed up in Ireland who has to return to the US once his father is close to death.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/this_must_be_the_place/

Well this was pretty rambling, unfocused & pretty dreadful.
Came across as a bit of a pretentious love in between the director & his lead actor which never let us in to our big secret.
Dublin plays a large early part in the movie but that's swapped for a road trip across the US for the 2nd half.
Penn plays this former rock star with a twee fragile voice that's just becomes annoying.
Bono's daughter is fine for her 5 minute screentime & is good on a skateboard.
The Tesco mobile ad guy pops up for a few scenes which don't make any sense.

This is a mongrel of a movie that needed a much stronger director at the helm.
Overall 3/10.

johnny_ultimate

Threads merged.

Thought it was unfocused and rambling myself (although that seems to be what the director was going for). Really didn't buy into Sean Penn's performance, and the whole film had an unfortunate penchant for showing off with crane and dolly shots. When you're getting distracted by shot choices, it's rarely a good sign :pac: A shame, because otherwise it was sometimes a nicely composed film. The tale takes a misguided, cliched direction when it arrives in America that means the central motivation for the character is arguably the least interesting part of the story

Worth seeing for the terrific one-shot David Byrne live performance of the title track, but kind of left me wishing I was watching a concert movie instead.

Decuc500

Rabidlamb wrote: »

This is a mongrel of a movie that needed a much stronger director at the helm.
Overall 3/10.

I think Paolo Sorrentino made exactly the film he set out to make, a quirky, rambling, visually arresting film. It certainly had more style than substance, but there aren’t many directors out there who make such beautiful looking films. I’d like to see him tackling someone else’s script though, maybe make a more focused film.

I'd still say The Consequences of Love and Il Divo are two of the best European films of recent years.

My thoughts from the JDIFF thread:

Have to say that I rather enjoyed This Must Be the Place, I didn't see it at the JDIFF but rather on the small screen and I think that it's one of those films that plays better at home. It's also one of those films that you really have to be in the mood for, took me awhile to sit down and watch it having started it a few times but turned it off. The first 30 minutes in Dublin is rather pointless, really adds nothing to the over all story and the characters aren't that interesting. Could easily have trimmed 45 minutes from the films run time and lost nothing.

I can't decide if Penn was simply phoning it in or was just immensely bored. At times he looked like he was sleepwalking through the film and as a character he really wasn't all that interesting. Judd Hirsch, Harry Dean Stanton and Shea Whigham were all very good if underused. Would have like to see more of Stanton, he's one of the last great American actors and seems in recent years to have relegated to small cameos.

I loved the leisurely pace of the film, the final 90 minutes was in no hurry to get to where it was going and it suited the tone. Though that said the over use of dolly and crane shots was distracting. The final confrontation with the

Nazi war criminal

and his speech should have been the films big moment but a lot was lost due to the way that it was filmed.