Neil Jordan weaves a nasty little tale full of dark humor and tragedy about a childhood gone very, very wrong. It is a childhood in which escapism is the only choice and where a kinship with violence is not very far behind.
The Butcher Boy is an extremely well-made film about the psychosis of a little boy, I can admit this film may not be for everybody. Despite the narration, the film intentionally keeps the viewer at arms length never quite letting anybody all the way in.
Teaming up with Patrick McCabe (who wrote the novel) for the screenplay, Jordan comes up with a starkly original film that, put in a crude Hollywood exec analogy, has elements of ‘Heavenly Creatures,’ ‘A Clockwork Orange,’ and ‘A Christmas Story.’ In the film, the psychotic imagery, narration and comedy compliment each other quite well throughout.
Neil Jordan tackled another of Patrick McCabe’s novels less successfully last year with ‘Breakfast on Pluto’ (which I also reviewed here at M&C on a shameless side note) which made the mistake of letting the fantasia of the story get out of hand, we lost sight of the characters but here the tone is much more confident.
The film begins with comic-book panels filling the screen during the opening credits which sets the stage automatically for a feeling of uneasiness, unstableness and then we settle in on our young protagonist Francie Brady (Eamonn Owens with a very strong debut), a mischievous tyke wreaking a fair amount of havoc on a small town in the West of Ireland in the early sixties with his best friend Joe.
Narrating his misadventures like Ralphie from ‘A Christmas Story’ is one of the film’s many pleasures and as our young Francie becomes more and more violent and unhinged, the narration spirals with him yet remains light and jovial, in direct contrast to what’s happening on-screen. One gets the idea of what ‘Christmas Story’ would have been like had Ralphie gone on a murderous rampage with that Red Ryder BB gun.
Francie starts off seemingly oblivious to the obvious fracturing of the world around him, his father (Stephen Rea) is a drunk, a failed musician with violent tendencies, and his mother is a manic-depressive who contemplates suicide. The façade he has in his mind begins to slowly crumble however when his mother gets shipped to the ‘garage’ (a mental institution) and his father remains in a drunken indifferent stupor.
His friendship with Joe (Alan Boyle) becomes his fortress of reassurance, they claim ownership of the town fountain, they bully a local nerd Phillip and hang out at a fort near the river discussing comic books. They become blood brothers and Francie develops a possessive, unhinged bond with Joe, a bond that may not survive the trials of the dreaded Mrs. Nugent (Fiona Shaw, who brought her pursed upper lip to another villainess role playing Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter franchise).
Mrs. Nugent is Phillips mother and has taken a strong disliking to Francie and labels him and family as ‘pigs’, an unfortunate analogy that will come back to haunt her. This rivalry quickly unhinges Francie’s world and separates him from Joe. He is sent to a youth home for troublemakers where he is relatively behaved besides an incident where an aging priest dresses him up in a bonnet. He returns back home only to find that Joe has shied away from him. Francie’s story about the home and the priest is told with a funny matter of fact spin, but Joe is just a kid…and maybe he see’s the first signs of disturbance in his Francies eyes. Young tomfoolery is one thing, but there is definitely something off with this one. Joe distances himself from Francie and even worse becomes best friends with Mrs. Nugent’s son Phillip.
No longer provided with a confidant, Francie begins to fantasize about the Virgin Mary (Sinead O’Connor!) who unspools advice with the occasional F-word. His fantasies then take the shape of the world around him with people he doesn’t trust turning into aliens from some cold war, sci-fi, b-picture. With a sweet irony, he lands a job as a butcher boy who uses a cleaver to chop up pig carcasses. The film reaches its violent foregone conclusion without much fanfare. The tension throughout the film has built to this moment and it becomes intentionally anti-climatic as it should be as this film is much more about the journey.
The performances are quite strong throughout with Eamonn Owens making a fantastic debut. The film is completely carried on his shoulders and there is never a false moment which reminds me of Kate Winslet’s equally great debut in ‘Heavenly Creatures’ which shares more than a few themes with ‘The Butcher Boy.’ Stephen Rea is always quite good and doesn’t disappoint here with his sixth film for Neil Jordan.
Neil Jordan has some very strong work and has made some fantastic films with ‘The Company of Wolves’ (1984), ‘Mona Lisa’ (1986) and the ‘The Crying Game’ (1992) yet his dalliances with Hollywood have not been good. The stolid “We’re No Angels” remake, the glossy, big-budget “Interview with a Vampire” and the thriller debacle “In Dreams” all prove that his best work seems to be homegrown…without the interference of budget and this small passionate film is one of his best.
The film is present in 1.85:1 widescreen and is enhanced for widescreen televisions. Special features include an articulate, enjoyable commentary by Director/Co-Screenwriter Neil Jordan, Additional Scenes and the films theatrical trailer.
An extremely well-made film about the psychosis of a little boy, I can admit this film may not be for everybody. Despite the narration, the film intentionally keeps the viewer at arms length never quite letting anybody all the way in.
Jordan doesn’t fashion a sympathetic movie character here but a realistic, disturbed little boy in which insanity might have been the only answer for him. That there seem to be reasons behind the violence for this 12-year old Irish boy might, at the very least, provide some relief for viewers in this post-Columbine world where suburbia indifference alone seems to provoke it.
The Butcher Boy is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for this version of the DVD in the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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