Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó first worked with Ellen Burstyn on his 2020 drama “Pieces of a Woman,” and immediately knew he wanted to make another movie with her. I felt I was with a master.” The Oscar-winning star of “The Exorcist” and “Requiem for a Dream” has built her 70-year career on roles in horror films and serious dramas, but Mundruczó envisioned something different. In what Mundruczó describes as an “urban road movie,” Burstyn plays Brooke, a widowed woman whose children are trying to force her into a retirement home.
When a pigeon flys through her window and refuses to leave, Brooke embarks on a cross-country road trip to return the bird to its owner, meeting divorcee Nelson (Taika Waititi) along the way. The two strike up an unlikely friendship with each other and the pigeon, learning that it’s never too late to start a new chapter in life. Mundruczó says the idea struck him when he attended a pigeon race — a historic sport where specially trained pigeons are transported to a location and then released to fly home, with the winner being the bird that returns the fastest.
After Burstyn was on board, the next challenge was finding an actor to play opposite the Strasberg-trained actress. I needed this real quality person. And then Taika popped up in my mind,” Mundruczó says.
Someone who you feel this kind of true depth and complexity on this cheerful facade.” When Burstyn and Waititi met, it was “immediately a big love,” he adds. It was supremely important to Mundruczó that the film used real birds and as little CGI as possible. Seventeen pigeons played Intruder, the name that Burstyn’s character gives to her flying friend.
When audiences are able to see “Place to Be,” Mundruczó hopes they come away with hope — and perhaps a newfound love for pigeons. And that’s true as well for Nelson’s character,” he says.
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