Film Reviews

Breakfast on Pluto

• Rating:
• Director: Neil Jordan
• Starring: Brendan Gleeson
• Details: Ireland, 129 mins, 16s.

Patrick 'Kitten' Braden (Murphy) is a sweet and naive transvestite from Monaghan. Kitten takes off to London to search for his long lost mother, who handed him up for adoption after becoming pregnant to a randy priest (Liam Neeson). Aloof from reality, life in London proves too tough for the delicate Kitten, and she inevitably winds up hustling on the mean streets of Soho. As Kitten's quest for happiness and a home continues without hope, she stumbles across Gavin Friday's gay singer, Brendan Gleeson's Great Uncle Bulgaria Womble, Stephen Rea's lovelorn hypnotist, Ian Harte's hardened detective, and Roxy Music's Bryan Ferry, who plays a nasty killer to fantastic effect in his film debut.
Mixing humour with poignancy, Neil Jordan revisits transvestism some 13 years after The Crying Game in what is his, and Ireland's best film in, well, 13 years. Adapted by Jordan and Patrick McCabe from McCabe's own novel, Breakfast On Pluto will make you laugh and cry. With new and interesting characters coming and going before they get boring, Jordan keeps the pace moving swiftly throughout. But this is Cillian Murphy's film, as this role is arguably the nearest metamorphosis of character and actor since, dare it be said, Robert De Niro and Jake La Motta. His consistent sugary innocence, seductive purr and a penchant for impressive wigs - turning himself into an attractive looking woman that may question even the most hardened of homophobe's sexual orientation - is worthy of an Oscar. What it could be criticised for is its length: at over two hours, Breakfast on Pluto outstays its welcome and Jordan could easily shave off a half-hour without losing any thrust of the story. But that's nitpicking, as Breakfast on Pluto is really unmissable.

Review by Gavin Burke