With "Breakfast on Pluto," Neil Jordan attempts a whimsical picaresque tale but creates instead a pale and glaringly underdeveloped movie.
Cillian Murphy tries with all of his might to inject some vitality into the character of Patrick Braden, an effeminate boy who grows up to be a cross-dressing gamine, a sort of modern-day Scarlett O'Hara who wants to prance through life without getting his feet dirty in any of the world's messiness. Instead of the Civil War, the backdrop here is 1970s Ireland and the constant threat of violence posed by the IRA. Patrick leaves his home to search for his mother, who abandoned him when he was a babe, and inadvertently finds himself mixed up with the terrorist group. From there he flees to London and has all sorts of what we're supposed to think are nutty adventures, until a happy ending finds Patrick at peace and all right with the world.
None of this really works. Neil Jordan, a filmmaker whose repertoire suggests political preoccupations, does not seem at any moment convinced by the fantasy or optimism of his own film, so everything rings false. Nothing that happens to Patrick, good or bad, seems to have any significant consequences, and we don't ever really learn much about him or about what he himself has learned on his journey. I believe Jordan intends for us to believe that Patrick has grown as a person over the course of the film, but I only believe that because of the conventions of picaresque stories, not because I saw any growth in Patrick's character. The screenplay works double time to race through all of the plot points -- it feels as if the screenwriter were adapting an 800-page novel to the screen but didn't want to leave anything out. The story introduces a character in one scene only to send him packing two scenes later without having made any tangible impact on the story.
"Breakfast on Pluto" is not a bad movie, and despite its flaws still offers a moderately enjoyable ride. The awesome pulsing soundtrack helps greatly, and often does much of the work that should have fallen to either Jordan or his actors. I found myself at times responding to nothing but the music, which does not make for a whole-hearted recommendation of the film, but I'll take what I can get.
Grade: B-
Cillian Murphy tries with all of his might to inject some vitality into the character of Patrick Braden, an effeminate boy who grows up to be a cross-dressing gamine, a sort of modern-day Scarlett O'Hara who wants to prance through life without getting his feet dirty in any of the world's messiness. Instead of the Civil War, the backdrop here is 1970s Ireland and the constant threat of violence posed by the IRA. Patrick leaves his home to search for his mother, who abandoned him when he was a babe, and inadvertently finds himself mixed up with the terrorist group. From there he flees to London and has all sorts of what we're supposed to think are nutty adventures, until a happy ending finds Patrick at peace and all right with the world.
None of this really works. Neil Jordan, a filmmaker whose repertoire suggests political preoccupations, does not seem at any moment convinced by the fantasy or optimism of his own film, so everything rings false. Nothing that happens to Patrick, good or bad, seems to have any significant consequences, and we don't ever really learn much about him or about what he himself has learned on his journey. I believe Jordan intends for us to believe that Patrick has grown as a person over the course of the film, but I only believe that because of the conventions of picaresque stories, not because I saw any growth in Patrick's character. The screenplay works double time to race through all of the plot points -- it feels as if the screenwriter were adapting an 800-page novel to the screen but didn't want to leave anything out. The story introduces a character in one scene only to send him packing two scenes later without having made any tangible impact on the story.
"Breakfast on Pluto" is not a bad movie, and despite its flaws still offers a moderately enjoyable ride. The awesome pulsing soundtrack helps greatly, and often does much of the work that should have fallen to either Jordan or his actors. I found myself at times responding to nothing but the music, which does not make for a whole-hearted recommendation of the film, but I'll take what I can get.
Grade: B-