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Eccentric, misguided and occasionally charming and sweet, this curiosity item is unlikely to be embraced critically or commercially.

Negotiating a consistent artistic path as steadily as a drunk walking a straight line, This Must Be the Place is all over the place dramatically, tonally and thematically. In his first English-language feature, Italian writer-director Paolo Sorrentino centers on a character even stranger (and stranger looking) than the main character of his 2008 Cannes hit Il Divo -- a goth rocker who emerges from a 30-year seclusion to take an unexpected road trip. Eccentric, misguided and occasionally charming and sweet, this curiosity item with Sean Penn in one of his nuttier performances is unlikely to be embraced critically or commercially.