Breakfast on Pluto, directed by Neil Jordan, is an adventure tale of Patrick Braden (played as a child by Conor McEvoy, as a teenager by Cillian Murphy), a woman who is trapped in a man's body and crossdresses from an early age. The story, which is a retake of The Butcher Boy (1998), has thirty-six captioned segments, demonstrating that Patrick (or Kitten, as he is called during most of the movie) always makes the best of unfortunate situations. Born in the fictional town of Tyreelin, Ireland, he attends Catholic school, where he confesses peccadilloes to Father Bernard (played by Liam Neeson), who earlier has sex his housekeeper, Elly Bergin (played by Eva Birthistle), giving birth to Patrick. Assigned to a foster family, Patrick knows nothing until nearly the end of the film about his father or mother except for the latter's name and possible whereabouts in London. One day, when asked to write an English composition in a high school class, Patrick's essay is so lascivious that he gets in trouble; a second incident results in his expulsion. His foster mother is so infuriated by his femininity and school expulsion that he decides to take to the road as an attractive teenage damsel, taking the name of Kitten, who already has special friends his own age--Irwin (played by Emmet Lawlor McHugh) and Charlie (played by Bianca O'Connor). His adventures begin one night with motorcycle vagabonds, the leader of whom coins the phrase that is the movie's title as a way of proposing the virtues of a life of endless adventure. Next, he hitchhikes with a musical group, the Mohawks, infatuates the leader, Billy Hatchet (played by Gavin Friday), and becomes a Native American squaw in a singing duo with him, an act that soon brings on a hostile audience in politically turbulent Northern Ireland of the 1970s. The rest of the band demands that Kitten be dropped from the group, but Billy parks Kitten in his rundown mobile home alongside a lake. While keeping house, Kitten discovers a hidden cache of weapons, so he drops them in the lake, thereby getting himself in trouble with Irish Republican Army terrorists who have used the home to store some firearms. Kitten then flees to London in search of his mother, but is unsuccessful in locating her. He is nearly killed while hustling on the street, but he locates employment at first as a clown (played by Brendan Gleeson) and later as an assistant to a magician (played by Stephen Rhea). Meanwhile, his two Irish friends have also moved to London. Irwin (now played by Laurence Kinlan) provides wheels for IRA escapades,and Charlie (now played by Ruth Negga) is his spouse. Charlie discovers him in the middle of a performance with the magician and pulls him out from what she perceives to be a humiliating role. Kitten then lives with Charlie and Irwin, goes to a disco, but that night the establishment is bombed. When he is rescued, wearing the constant smile on his face that has survived all the abovementioned misfortunes, police are suspicious. Two police officers arrest him, rough him up to gain names or a confession, but he instead seeks to seduce them and talks nonsense. After his release, he returns to street hustling, but one of the police inspectors spots him on the street, picks him up, and transports him to a peep show, where he is employed as a pretty girl on a swing in a room while men pay to talk to him by microphone from another private room. One day, the priest is his interlocutor and reveals the identity and whereabouts of his mother and father. However, Irwin is soon killed by his IRA bosses one day, leaving Charlie pregnant without financial means of support. The priest takes them into his church accommodations, but parishioners are upset, and the church burns down, so the priest is reassigned, leaving Charlie and Kitten to fend for themselves. The ending, nevertheless, is a happy one for them. An outstanding feature of the film is how Kitten resiliently maintains a Panglossian personality by tuning out the "too serious" political drama that has unfolded around her by focusing on what really matters--loving they neighbor. MH
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