‘Place To Be’ review: Ellen Burstyn and Taika Waititi star in odd-couple comedy which never quite takes flight

Dir. Kornél Mundruczó. Australia. 2026. 104mins

A widowed elderly woman, Brooke (Ellen Burstyn) is “writing the final chapter of my life” and hoping for a happy ending. What she perhaps hadn’t anticipated at this late stage of her story was a cross-country road trip in the company of an errant racing pigeon and Nelson (Taika Waititi), a dissatisfied middle-aged realtor with the beginnings of an alcohol problem. This odd-couple adventure by Kornél Mundruczó is the kind of story about an older protagonist which is tackled all too rarely in cinema. The film, unlike Brooke’s grasping son, sees her as a fleshed-out character rather than just an age. Unfortunately, despite its laudable intentions and a spirited performance by Burstyn, the picture doesn’t always take wing.

There’s an uneasy discord between the two performance styles

Premiering out of competition in Venice, this is Mundruczó’s second feature this year to premiere at a major European festival, following the Berlin bow of his Amy Adams-starring drama, At The Sea. Both films were scripted by Mundruczó’s wife and regular collaborator Kata Wéber, both deal with female central characters attempting to reshape the way the world views them. But for Brooke, who dedicated herself to the care of her children and her successful but domineering artist husband, it’s not so much how she’s viewed as whether she is seen at all.

This is certainly a meaty theme, but one which is not always matched by a screenplay which can feel rather cursory and loosely strung together at times. The film’s gentle humour and plucky, characterful protagonist will likely appeal to the kind of mature demographic which tends to consume most of its cinema via a streaming platform. And it’s perhaps there, rather than in cinemas, that the picture is likely to continue its journey.

Brooke’s children, visiting their mother’s elegant Chicago apartment to honour the anniversary of their father’s death, see her as a problem to be solved. Her daughter, Molly (Pamela Anderson) hovers fretfully, on agonising tenterhooks as her mother carries a tray of desserts from the kitchen. Her son, Ron (Murray Bartlett, also seen in At The Sea), roughed up by his rocky relationship with his father, is less empathetic. He has already contacted an art dealer for quotes on his dad’s overbearing canvases and secured a slot in a retirement home for Brooke. The spacious apartment that she sees as a home, he views as a collection of assets to be liquidised. Brooke jokes dryly about the Papua New Guinea tradition of dealing with widows (the oldest son, she says pointedly, is given the job of strangling her to death). But worn down by her children’s insistence, she agrees to view the care home.

Then the bird arrives. A dapper white racing pigeon with black go-faster stripes on its wings, it shows no inclination to leave. Brooke learns the identity of the owner and sets out on the marathon trip from Chicago to Brooklyn to return the bird that she names ‘Intruder’. On the sleeper train, she meets the obnoxious Nelson, whose train ticket she pays for just to shut him up. The growing friendship between Brooke and Nelson is the heart of the picture, so it’s a considerable stumbling block that the spark between them never fully ignites. There’s an uneasy discord between the two performance styles, with Burstyn showing measured restraint while Waititi opts for a more scattershot and erratic approach, punctuated by occasional gurning.

The central relationship between the two main characters is not the only aspect that lacks credibility: the film is set in Chicago and New York but filmed on a sound stage in Australia, losing some of the authentic city textures in the process. A score which includes an unexpected easy listening cover version of Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain, adds an element of quirky personality to the film. 

More successful is the avian component, with the skillful wrangling of the film’s appealing pigeon star (or stars – a total of 25 birds played various aspects of the role of Intruder) impressive throughout. Still, this is feather-light fare which, like the bird at the center of the story, doesn’t seem to know where it is going.