Does Leprechaun count?

The Wind That Shakes the Barley
Intermission
Successful Irish actors
The Snapper
The Field
The Rocky Road to Dublin
Erm the way foreigners confuse Irish cinema with British/American
The worst Irish accents in American Movies
and other stuff I can't remember.

Breakfast on Pluto

With the delivery of a frenetic school child’s first fiction piece, Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto flitters about a dream world where reality keeps knocking at the door. The young Patrick Braden (Cillian Murphy) tries to carve out his own sense of self against the brutal backdrop of 1970’s Northern Ireland and London. And through his eyes Breakfast on Pluto assigns relevancy to the urban and political landscape by showing its affects on an individual’s actions and aspirations. Audiences hoping for transparent commentary on violence, politics, or gender will be frustrated by Jordan’s desire to craft Breakfast as a personal journey rather than manifesto.

From the first minutes of the movie through to its last, Patrick’s transvestitism is never in doubt. Not by him, and not by the many people he forms close bonds with. By establishing Patrick’s penchant for dressing in women’s clothes and calling himself “Kitten” from an early age, Jordan shifts the focus from the expected internal and familial struggles to one considered far more mundane. Braden goes looking for a new life in the big city. He was left on the doorstep of Father Bernard (Liam Neeson) years earlier, and having never found his “place” in a small Irish town, he bids adieu and hitchhikes his way to bigger and better things.

Patrick has a colorful imagination and hope for finding acceptance. Nearly everyone he meets from tough musician to aggressive policeman is grilled with Rapunzel-like questions. Will the man whisk Patrick away to security? Patrick, for all of his wanderings around England and Ireland wants nothing more than to feel grounded. As bombs go off in discos, and seedy men try to pick him up and kill him, Patrick maintains his hope that “the next one” will prove to be one better than those who came before.

Patrick meets Billy Hatchet (Gavin Friday), and the two sing their love onstage in Billy’s show. He meets John-Joe (Brendan Gleesan) and the two work together for a brief period in a children’s amusement village. He meets Bertie (Stephen Rea) who hires him to assist in magician performances. For the magician, Patrick pretends to be hypnotized and chases his mother around the room. He is still tirelessly searching for his mother. Patrick loses touch with his best friends, loses some of his friends, and meets best friend Charlie (Ruth Negga) once again when she seeks out his support in London. He still tirelessly searches for his mother. The endless stream of characters and situations that waltz in and out of Patrick’s life flow like water to his roots. He just needs to find fertile soil in which to plant himself firmly and begin flourishing.

Patrick believes that nourishment lies with meeting his mother. As a child he writes about his birth being the product of a liaison between a beautiful maid and Father Bernard. As Bernard withholds affection from the young boy, Patrick is left to fantasize about a loving and accepting mother and a welcoming home. His quest to find her becomes a journey of self-awareness. It appears as though Patrick’s naiveté prevents that introspection. Or does it? Neither naïve nor simple, Patrick makes numerous decisions along his way that are steeped in determined self-expression. He does respond to his environment, and quite aggressively. He forces everyone from his father to policemen to deal with him on his grounds, and not as an easily categorized man, woman, Irish, Catholic, worker, prostitute, performer, teenager, villager, urbanite, or child.

Murphy performs admirably as the fresh-faced determined Patrick. His mix of coyness and sincerity is truly one of the more memorable performances of the year. Jordan has a way of bringing out the strongest in his cast. Veteran cast members from Jordan’s past works returned for Breakfast on Pluto, and clearly enjoy working with him. Neeson, who worked with Jordan in Michael Collins, hasn’t performed so well in years considering the few minutes of screen time granted his Bernard. He is granted one poignant dialogue with his son where Neeson relates an incredible sense of loss and discomfort. Rea (The Crying Game) gets little screen time as well, but as the b-rate magician catering to the dingy crowds of the London underbelly, his understated delivery blends perfectly into the urban landscape.

Jordan struggles slightly with delivering the episodes of Patrick’s story. Headings are etched out in the handwriting of the young protagonist. Breakfast on Pluto flips through chapter after chapter of Patrick’s life book. The pretext leads to a choppy film to say the least. Sometimes the equal gravity assigned life, death, and dressing up like a giant chicken works; other times it does not. Jordan’s backgrounds are always teeming with noise and overheard conversations that help to build the chaotic environment Patrick risks getting lost in. But the whimsical “chatting” birds just seem a little misplaced even for the bright blue-eyed boy’s dreamland.

The gusto Jordan exhibited in placing the upbeat birds, handwriting, and soundtrack into the dark setting of poverty and violence must be applauded. He at least tries to deliver a new “1st person” narrative, even during the film’s shakier and more redundant moments.


Grade: B