Breakfast on Pluto

 Breakfast on Pluto 2005

• Director: Neil Jordan
• Seen by the director: The Butcher Boy, Michael Collins, The Crying Game, Mona Lisa
• Based on book by Pat McCabe
• Cast: Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Ruth McCabe, Ruth Negga, Liam Cunningham, Brendan Gleeson, Stephen Rea, Ian Hart
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Cillian Murphy – Dunkirk, Transcendence, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, The Dark Knight, Sunshine, Batman Begins, Cold Mountain, Girl with Pearl Earring, Intermission, 28 Days Later
• Liam Neeson – Life’s Too Short, Seraphim Falls, Batman Begins, Kingdome of Heaven, Love Actually, Gangs of New York, Star Wars, Les Misérables, Michael Collins, Rob Roy, Nell, Schindler’s List, Ruby Cairo, Excalibur
• Ruth McCabe – Victoria & Abdul, Philomena, Good Vibrations, Inside I’m Dancing, Intermission, Titanic Town, Circle of Friends, Takin’ over the Asylum, My Left Foot
• Ruth Negga – Ad Astra, World War Z, Misfits
• Liam Cunningham – Doctor Who, Merlin
• Brendan Gleeson – Alone in Berlin, Suffragette, Edge of Tomorrow, Harry Potter, In Bruges, Kingdom of Heaven, Cold Mountain, 28 Days Later, AI, My Life So Far, The Butcher Boy, Michael Collins
• Stephen Rea – V for Vendetta, Tara Road, Still Crazy, Fever Pitch, Michael Collins, The Crying Game, Life Is Sweet
• Ian Hart – Escape from Pretoria, Tristram Shandy, Finding Neverland, Harry Potter, Born Romantic, Longitude, The Butcher Boy, Michael Collins, The Englishman Who Went up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain
• Why? The cast
• Seen: 29 April 2022      

       Patrick (Murphy) is a transvestite, possibly trans, possibly gay, whatever. That is not acceptable in the 70’s in the Catholic Northern Ireland. She’s had enough, off he heads for London, arriving after various adventures.

       I’m all for gender-bending and thumbing one’s nose at the Catholic church, or any church for that matter, but all this vampish girlishness with pouty lips, fluttery heavily mascaraed eyelashes and cooing voice is irritating no matter who’s doing it.

       Kitten, as she calls himself, will do anything to avoid seriousness, but seriousness hounds her. The IRA, homophobia, police brutality. He goes through it all in hazy dreaminess, possibly madness.

       Murphy is convincing, the music is mostly great, and there are some fun small roles (Brian Ferry, Mad-Eye Moody, for example).

       It hovers between moving and parody. By the end I’m almost won over, but it goes on too long and becomes too sugary at the end.      

3 ½ * of 5