Sunday, less than 13 hours after I got out of Falstaff, it was back to Lincoln Center for my last film at the New York Film Festival, its "centerpiece," Breakfast on Pluto. The schedule said it started at noon, but the ticket said 11:59 a.m. Maybe it was Brunch on Pluto.
Director Neil Jordan adapted Patrick McCabe's 1998 novel for this film (the film's website has an incorrect date). It's the story of Patrick "Kitten" Braden, a crossdressing orphan in Ireland in the 60's, who grows up to search for his mother in London in the 70's. I haven't read it, though I don't know how much it would have added. In the Q&A after the screening Jordan said that when he does use a book as his source his first allegience is to the film, not the book. He specifically said he entirely made up the ending of the film, having thought the novel didn't really have much of one.
Jordan had previously made The Crying Game, which he said McCabe was influenced by in writing Breakfast on Pluto. Both share the themes of transgenderism and Ireland's political violence. He was unsure whether he wanted to do so similar a film. While exploring the possibilities, he had Cillian Murphy do a screen test as Kitten, using the peep show scene. He was amazed at how much Murphy was able to get out of the character, he said--much more than he actually had envisioned.
Still, he was undecided. This went on for a while, until one night when he was having dinner with Murphy. Murphy wanted to do the film very badly, later calling Kitten "a once in a lifetime role for me." He told Jordan that if they were going to make the film that they had better get started, before he got too old to play the part. Indeed, he was into his late 20's when it was shot, and the early scenes of Kitten's teenage years are a stretch.
But the film did get made, and it is a lot of fun. (My only quibble is that the Irish accented dialogue was difficult to understand sometimes, especially in the early scenes.) Jordan said he had Candide in the back of his mind, and Kitten certainly was a youth who naively flits from one peril to the next, as did Voltaire's character. Breakfast on Pluto is not nearly as serious a film as The Crying Game. If you can't believe Kitten, or some of the things she gets into (and out of), it doesn't really matter. It's just a fun movie--the whole tone is set by a couple of wise-cracking computer-generated birds that open the film. Jordan said he was worried that audiences wouldn't get the humor. They did no audience testing, they just threw it into the film festivals, first Telluride, then Toronto, then here. He worried for nothing.
Murphy was gorgeous. The Q&A moderator, Lisa Schwarzbaum, was really taken by his cheekbones. I was taken by his eyes. His performance was great. I've heard mention of an Oscar nomination, but I doubt it. Crossdressing actors aren't favored: Philip Seymour Hoffman didn't get a nomination for his drag role. In fact, the entire cast was wonderful. And this time Stephen Rea got to play a character that can recognize a tranny.
It's opening in November. See it.
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