Showing @ Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh until Thu 12 Apr

Paolo Sorrentino / Italy/France/Ireland / 2011 / 118 mins

Rock music has always provided fertile ground for films, whether in mockumentaries like This Is Spinal Tap or art-house biopics such as Control. However, few digress quite like Paola Sorrentino’s first English language effort, This Must Be the Place. Sean Penn stars as Cheyenne, a former rock star caught in the monotony of his meaningless day to day life. But when his estranged Jewish father dies, Cheyenne takes up the baton and sets out to find a Nazi war criminal hiding somewhere in America.

The cinematography in This Must Be the Place can only be described as stunning, while Sorrentino’s script (co-written with Umberto Contarello) skilfully achieves an emotional equipoise between hilarious absurd humour and restrained solemnity. Yet it is Penn, a seemingly counterintuitive casting choice, who steals the film’s focus. Modelled on The Cure’s Robert Smith, Penn’s portrayal of a fragile, ennui stricken individual with a Peter Pan complex is spot on. But still there’s something missing. Though the storyline threatens to open an interesting debate on grand narratives and purpose, by the time the film reaches its dénouement you can’t help but feel the Nazi hunt was more of a distraction than an answer. That said, this is undoubtedly a piece that will reveal more with each viewing.