Place To Be Review: Charming Character Drama

Place To Be relies entirely on its complex, lovable characters to keep the audience’s attention, but it does so to great effect.

Place To Be tells the story of an older woman named Brooke Graham (Ellen Burstyn), who undertakes an unlikely journey to accompany a lost pigeon from Chicago to New York after it flies into her apartment. Along the way, she meets Nelson Green (Taika Waititi), an arrogant realtor travelling to New York for work. Although the pair initially get caught by each other’s prickly exteriors, Brooke and Graham quickly develop a strong friendship—and their trip teaches them both crucial lessons about family, independence, and sacrifice.

Even more so than Mundruczó’s previous films, Place To Be is entirely driven by its central performances and the vibrant dynamic between the lead actors. Ellen Burstyn and Taika Waititi have brilliant on-screen chemistry, and they bounce off each other effortlessly throughout the film. Their characters both start off very closed-off and protective: Nelson is struggling with his family and desperately seeking approval, while Brooke is trying to escape the suffocating pressure of her two children, who want to transfer her to a care home. It’s not until they come together and share their stories that Brooke and Nelson finally open up in a meaningful way, and Burstyn’s performance stands out as the film’s beating heart. It’s a deeply emotional, authentic role that plays exactly to the actress’ strengths.

Unfortunately, Mundruczó’s screenplay doesn’t quite feel as lively and energetic as the actors delivering it. Many of the storytelling decisions in Place To Be feel quite clichéd; this is a dynamic that audiences will have seen before in countless other films, and this movie doesn’t quite do enough to separate itself from the rest of the genre. There will inevitably be comparisons to films such as Lost in Translation—but where Sofia Coppola’s movie thrives because of its rich subtext and deeply thematic storytelling, Place To Be feels like a fairly simple, superficial version of that.

Place To Be often feels like it’s trying to be more than a charming road trip movie, but in reality, it should be happy with simply being a great example of a pretty linear, familiar story. This isn’t breaking any new ground, but the story does serve as a feasible playground for Burstyn and Waititi to deliver two magnetic performances that will keep the audience engaged from start to finish. There isn’t a moment of the story that feels boring or dull, and they’re largely responsible for that; it just feels like watching two friends go about an extraordinary adventure, and there’s something very charming about that.

From a filmmaking perspective, Place To Be is another win for Mundruczó’s filmography. This is a really well-made film that constantly feels like every aspect of its creative design—the visuals, the soundtrack, the direction—is operating on a strong level that never wavers. In the hands of a lesser director, this very quickly could have become a boring, drawn-out drama; Mundruczó gives it the jolt of electricity it needs to stay afloat despite its somewhat familiar and repetitive story.

Ultimately, Place To Be is one of Kornél Mundruczó’s most unabashedly charming and sentimental movies, even if it lacks the storytelling bite of his previous films. It isn’t saying anything new that previous films haven’t stated more loudly and more decisively, but this admittedly feels like a director simply having fun with a crowd-pleasing project and hoping to take the audience on an emotional ride—in which regard it completely succeeds.

Place to Be had its World Premiere at the 2026 Venice Film Festival on September 9, 2026.