I was very disappointed in "Breakfast on Pluto." The film starts out promisingly enough, particularly with the all too quickly abandoned device of the gossiping robins who provide some narrative exposition. Patrick's speculative fantasy about his conception also suggests that the fantastic will continue to play a role in his/her respective adventures, but again, this fades all too quickly. Eventually, his/her constant refrain of "serious, serious, serious," become hard to take in light of the circumstances he/she comes to face.
It's hard to develop any real sympathy for Patrick/Patricia Kitten. Even when we learn the source of his/her private pain, it comes so long after he/she has already been established as vain-glorious and thoroughly self-involved that it's truly hard to care.
This is on top of the fact that besides being abandoned at birth, he/she seems to have been raised in a household whose sole restriction was that he/she not serve as a public embarrassment. While we might retrospectively recognize that his adopted mother's admonition that he repeat "I am not a girl" while roughly brushing him was not the most healthy response to his early trans-gender experimentation, the film offers little other reason for the audience to understand why Patrick was so rude to his adopted mother and sister.
The movie's truly "serious" moments show some promise, as the acting is quite good (Gavin Friday and Liam Neeson are standouts)and the situations truly serious, but it's hard to care when Patrick/Patricia's concern about these situations is so fleeting.
Some moments do stand out, particularly the scene in the abortion clinic and Fr. Benard's confession to Patrick/Patricia in the peepshow, but the rest of the film's most potentially poignant moments are cut short by the lead character's refusal to recognize the gravity of the situations in which he/she finds him/herself.
It's hard to develop any real sympathy for Patrick/Patricia Kitten. Even when we learn the source of his/her private pain, it comes so long after he/she has already been established as vain-glorious and thoroughly self-involved that it's truly hard to care.
This is on top of the fact that besides being abandoned at birth, he/she seems to have been raised in a household whose sole restriction was that he/she not serve as a public embarrassment. While we might retrospectively recognize that his adopted mother's admonition that he repeat "I am not a girl" while roughly brushing him was not the most healthy response to his early trans-gender experimentation, the film offers little other reason for the audience to understand why Patrick was so rude to his adopted mother and sister.
The movie's truly "serious" moments show some promise, as the acting is quite good (Gavin Friday and Liam Neeson are standouts)and the situations truly serious, but it's hard to care when Patrick/Patricia's concern about these situations is so fleeting.
Some moments do stand out, particularly the scene in the abortion clinic and Fr. Benard's confession to Patrick/Patricia in the peepshow, but the rest of the film's most potentially poignant moments are cut short by the lead character's refusal to recognize the gravity of the situations in which he/she finds him/herself.