The film seems to be aiming for a whimsical flourish on an otherwise unpleasant subject. Its premiere at Cannes met with a mixed response. I remain underwhelmed.
- Ed Gibbs, The Sunday Age, April 09, 2012
This Must Be the Place is dazzling to behold.
- Anthony Lane, New Yorker, October 25, 2012
If you give Penn (and the movie) a chance, the character works, movingly and somewhat miraculously.
- Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, November 09, 2012
The movie replaces emotional precision and intellectual honesty with syrupy sincerity and insistence.
- Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle, November 08, 2012
With its overbearing eccentricity, rib-nudging irony and confusion of tones, everything in the film is either underdeveloped or overstated.
- Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune, November 08, 2012
This isn't a great movie, but it is a special one.
- Ty Burr, Boston Globe, November 08, 2012
This Must Be the Place gives Penn a chance to vamp and camp in ways that are sometimes touching and mostly annoying.
- Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor, November 02, 2012
Sean Penn as an ex-rock-star Nazi hunter feels like a lot to swallow. It is.
- James Rocchi, MSN Movies, November 02, 2012
Sean Penn has received a mantle's worth of humanitarian awards over the years. But he might have to give one of them back, just to make amends for "This Must Be the Place."
- Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger, November 02, 2012
If the movie doesn't entirely get past its hard-to-buy premise, director Paolo Sorrentino does have the courage of his convictions, not just embracing every contradiction but spinning many of the story's contrivances into moments of strange, aching beauty.
- Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times, November 01, 2012
The plot turns are playful as well as jolting, and the visual shocks are gentle: a bison on the porch, the world's largest pistachio, Mr. Penn in his makeup.
- A.O. Scott, New York Times, November 01, 2012
Bizarre can be good when it's done deftly. In this case, however, it's done ponderously and sententiously.
- Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal, November 01, 2012
This mashup of genres and themes doesn't entirely succeed, but it is warm, funny and ably crafted.
- Mark Jenkins, NPR, November 01, 2012
Penn is astonishing, creating a funny, guileless waif, infusing a faded celebrity figure with tactility and humor.
- Chris Packham, Village Voice, November 01, 2012
Writer-director Paolo Sorrentino handles the story with surprising thoughtfulness.
- Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader, November 16, 2012
The cast ... is outstanding, dragging the offbeat story through the occasional look-at-me distractions.
- Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic, November 15, 2012
Although "This Must Be the Place" holds our attention, it's a little difficult to say where it's headed.
- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, November 15, 2012
In the end, "This Must Be the Place" isn't just bad. It's inappropriate.
- Tom Keogh, Seattle Times, November 08, 2012
The film's numerous idiosyncrasies-virtues at the outset-ultimately suffocate it.
- Keith Uhlich, Time Out New York, October 31, 2012
The film believes in maturity, but only as a freely continual process of acceptance.
- Joseph Jon Lanthier, Slant Magazine, October 28, 2012
