Breakfast on Pluto (2005)

Directed by: Neil Jordan | 135 minutes | drama, comedy | Actors: Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea, Brendan Gleeson, Gavin Friday, Ruth Negga, Laurence Kinlan, Conor McEvoy, Ian Hart, Eva Birthistle, Ruth McCabe, Steven Waddington, Mark Doherty, Sid Young, Ciaran Nolan, Eamonn Owens, Tony Devlin, Bryan Ferry, Seamus Reilly, Bianca O’Connor, Charlene McKenna, Jo Jo Finn, Neil Jackson, Paraic Breathnach, James McHale, Liam Cunningham, Owen Roe, Mary Coughlan, Mary Regan, Pat McCabe, Kathryn Pogson, Gerry O Brien, Chris McHallem, Peter Gowen, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Jonathan Ryan, Chris Robinson, Rynagh O’Grady, Derek Elroy, Britta Smith, Doreen Keogh, Tom Hickey, Mark Lambert, Emmet Lawlor McHugh, Steve Blount, Keith McCoy, Morne Botes, Rachel Donovan, Lex Shrapnel

‘Breakfast on Pluto’ is an adapted version of a Patrick McCabe book by Neil Jordan. The main character is a kind of ‘hero’ who is also a bit ‘crazy’ and a bit ‘holy’. Many ‘saints’ live their lives regardless of what their environment thinks about it, or the dangers that this entails.

“Kitten” (our “hero’s nickname”) is an incorrigible optimist, no matter how difficult or threatening the circumstances surrounding his cross-dressing. Kitten is so stubborn in his positivism (or is it denial of the situation) that even biker gangs or English cops or IRA assassins realize they can kill him, but they can’t change him. The film is a kind of modern fairy tale, but could also have fit very well in a kind of Charles Dickens-esque setting where he moves through the bottom layer of society, where he meets the most colorful people.

Kitten believes that his birth mother (who left him as a foundling on the rectory’s steps) has moved to London and that she resembles the actress Mitzi Gaynor. Kitten ‘knows’ who that is, of course, and would recognize her immediately upon meeting her. While searching for her, he sings in a rock band, becomes an illusionist’s assistant, is suspected of being an IRA bomber and also becomes another street whore. The dreamy story, which has been filmed with a lot of humor and speed, is actually about the acceptance of being different, in which sex hardly plays a role.

Kitten actually depends on the kindness of strangers, who constantly cross his path in his search for his mother. There are amusing and amorous developments with the rock band he meets and of which he becomes the lead singer. The collaboration with the illusionist is also entertaining, he becomes the lady who is sawn in two. Kitten doesn’t really cheat anyone with his being different, he doesn’t care if you love him as a man or woman, as long as you think he is Kitten. Although the storyline does not avoid some melodrama, the whole is such that it goes very well with the also plenty of humor. It remains a flowing story in which Kitten – despite all his social setbacks and the sometimes difficult circumstances in which he also encounters ‘villains’ – manages to maintain his innocence and still manage to maintain a friendship with all those colorful figures.

Homosexuality (‘Brokeback Mountain’), cross-dressing (this film), transsexuality (‘Transamerica’) are rewarding film subjects these days. Also in ‘Breakfast in Pluto’ the main character is given the opportunity to choose his own (natural) path and to make something beautiful out of it. The film has a nice plot about who actually was the father and whether he actually finds his mother or not. For that you will have to make the corridor to the cinema, the film is worth that corridor.