Review of Breakfast on Pluto (2005) by Aga K — 31 Jan 2008

If you saw a film in which merry robins discuss elements of the plot and quote Oscar Wilde, than certainly it was Breakfast on Pluto. Actually, it couldn't be anything else, because speaking parts for birds in non-children's movies are rather scarce. Breakfast on Pluto definitely isn't a children's movie, even though a hero Patrick "Kitten" Braden (Cillian Murphy), has a certain little boy-little girl quality about him.

It is an astounding story about an Irish transvestite on an episodic journey to find his mother. Patrick laments all that is "serious, serious, serious". He's right - life, especially in that part of the world at the particular time is serious - but it is also a cabaret.

The story is set in Ireland and London in the '60s and '70s. It is done not without a cause. Patrick and his boyhood friends are the witness of the beginnings of IRA war, but they don't suppose they will be involved in their own battle - a pitched battle with reality.

Adapted from a novel by Patrick McCabe, Breakfast is a cheeky, picaresque film that makes up in imagination. Cillian Murphy gives a high performance as Kitten - so silky, so completely real that it haunts us. His mental submersion creates a person whose motivations shake us with sincerity. It's a real pleasure to see films that are original, true and funny, dramatic, hopeful yet brutally frank about human nature. What's more a virtual hit parade from the past including "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" and "Feelings" is another reason that makes Breakfast on Pluto one of those films you want to see again. It's the mark of a classic.