If any film that involves politics, transvestites, magicians, rock bands, catholic priests, IRA bombers, CGI talking robins, the great search for one’s identity and the great search for one’s mother has interested you in the past, boy, do I have a film for you! Featuring all the above and more, Director Neil Jordan presents to us the misadventures of Kitten - a transvestite who escapes his small Irish town in a search for his mother in a politically tumultuous 70’s London.
Of course, transvestites and the IRA are nothing new to Neil Jordan. He also brought us 1992’s The Crying Game, a fabulous drama with one heck of a twist. It was a twist that 14 years later I still feel like I shouldn’t give away lest there’s still someone out there who has yet to be shocked. Although Breakfast on Pluto does share some obvious themes with that film, secrets are kept to a minimum here. I would label this film more a companion piece to Jordan’s 1998 film The Butcher Boy. Breakfast on Pluto and The Butcher Boy are both adapted from Patrick McCabe novels and both are about the survival of innocents in a psychotic world.
Kitten (played by the well-cast, androgynous Cillian Murphy from 28 Days Later and Batman Begins) opens the film with some retrospective narration along with CGI-animated robins whose tweets and whistles are kindly provided with subtitles. Patrick Brady is abandoned by his young mother, Eily, on the doorsteps of a Catholic priest (Liam Neeson). Given over to a strict foster mother, he realizes a “difference” to him at a young age. The foster mother and her daughter come home to find him in a dress and heels. They chase him around the house, force him into a tub, and seem to try and want to scrub the “sin” off of him. Needless to say, it doesn’t work.
Constantly providing challenge at the Catholic school he attends, it’s here he falls upon the name he will insist on being called in the future. “Kitten,” he reasons to the school’s headmaster is from the saints name “Cettin.” His foster mother becomes insufferable. Still suffering from the abandonment of his mother, he decides to head out to find her. The only clues he has to go on is her physical similarities to appropriate icon Mitzi Gaynor (from South Pacific) and her move to London.
This film is a fractured fairly tale (broken into chapters no doubt inspired by the book) with a number of interesting and individual scenes. Taken as a whole, it didn’t completely work for me. The film was just too busy with one strange sequence after the next, and I felt that whatever message the film was trying to convey got lost under the quirkiness and pretensions of the screenplay.
However, the film does have a number of great performances populated by a group of Jordan stalwarts like Liam Neeson (Michael Collins), Brendan Gleeson (Michael Collins and The Butcher Boy) and Stephen Rea (Angel and the aforementioned The Crying Game). Cillian Murphy also impresses adopting a faint, high-pitched chirrup of a voice that renders a third of his lines barely audible. Strangely, I was reminded of the voice Robin Williams creates for Mrs. Doubtfire - with common exclamations such as “Oh, kind sir!” It was a performance that indeed had to work considering Murphy occupies almost every minute of screen time.
It’s also notable that the film’s score is comprised of a number of glam rock song covers from that era that include Gavin Friday, Dusty Springfield, and Harry Nilsson. It’s an intuitive soundtrack that complements sequences and Kitten’s states of mind quite well throughout.
The film is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen and is enhanced for widescreen televisions. A nice English 5.1 soundtrack is provided and English subtitles are recommended for all but the Irish. Special Features include an audio commentary by Neil Jordan and Cillian Murphy - which is fairly informative and goes a long way in explaining some of the more oblique moments of the film. A nine minute Behind the Scenes featurette shows the usual on set footage and interviews and is worth a watch for fans of the film. Previews for other Sony pictures (Antonioni’s fabulous The Passenger among them) round out the package.
Released in a season that also provided us with Capote, Brokeback Mountain, Transamerica and Rent, the search for one’s identity and to be true to it has been a popular one. This film also provides us with another fascinating if not altogether successful addition to Neil Jordan’s Oeuvre that includes the outstanding early films In the Company of Wolves and Mona Lisa, the big Hollywood production of Interview with a Vampire and the strange messes that were High Spirits and In Dreams. If you’re a fan of Jordan’s past work or films like Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine, I would make a recommend. Others might want to try a rental first.
So what does the title “Breakfast on Pluto” mean? Well, it’s taken from a song from the 70’s that Neil Jordan so eloquently describes in his commentary “It means nothing….and everything at the same time.” It is a fairly apt description of the film as well.
Breakfast on Pluto is now available at Amazon . It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a May 15th release. Visit the DVD’s database for more information.
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