This Must Be the Place

This Must Be the Place (2011) is Paolo Sorrentino's offbeat drama, and you can watch online on iFILM. A faded rock star with a goth doll's face and a wispy, boyish whisper drives across America chasing a Nazi.

Cheyenne quit the stage decades ago and drifts through a vast house in Ireland. Black eyeliner, teased hair, a voice that barely rises above a murmur. His father's death pulls him back to New York and hands him an ugly truth: a specific guard humiliated his father in a camp, then vanished into the United States. So Cheyenne gets behind the wheel and crawls across empty America hunting a frail old war criminal. Sean Penn is almost unrecognizable in the role, with Frances McDormand as his firefighter wife and Eve Hewson alongside.

This was Sorrentino's first English-language feature, made before The Great Beauty, full of his slow gliding camera and dry humor. The title comes from Talking Heads, and David Byrne turns up on screen himself. It's a strange, melancholy, unexpectedly funny road movie for anyone who likes auteur cinema that refuses to hurry. Stream This Must Be the Place (2011) online on iFILM.