Liam Madden’s Film Reviews: Breakfast on Pluto

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Oh deary me. Whether it was based on an incredible book that somehow lost its impact when transferred to the cinematic view, Neil Jordan has never been shy regarding difficult subject matter and yet somehow creating something masterful out of the process before.

‘Breakfast on Pluto’ does have some impressive scenes. Its scale and scope elevates the film into the realms of expensive and almost epic, as it tells the biography of an abandoned child who could have been compared to Quentin Crisp, but without the wit.

Surprisingly timid and surprisingly dull
As a film that seems to have a premise of the lead character dressed as a woman and then following his journey throughout Ireland during the seventies, there seems little to explain to an audience and little to recommend about the film generally. It is surprisingly timid and surprisingly dull.

If one considers that the brilliance of ‘The Crying Game’ and ‘Interview with a Vampire’ are somehow sporadic in the filmography that belongs to Neil Jordan, ‘Breakfast on Pluto’ lacks a strong and direct narrative and the story gets very easily lost. It lacks the flamboyance or reasoning as to the attention the lead character needs to maintain, in order to carry the film forward.

Looks dated
Anyone Irish is undoubtedly going to find the subject shocking, but perhaps a wider audience would look at the work and suggest it immediately looks dated and has very little to say as a film.

The questions arise as to why and how the project became worthy of producing almost after the first ten minutes.

It isn’t that controversial a subject, and to drag it all out over such a long time by a director who is still welcomed into making films that can be truly worthy, whatever happened in ‘Breakfast on Pluto’ is somewhat confusing to say the least.

Lacking in style
Make no beans about wearing a dress however if you’re a man. Most of the time through watching ‘Breakfast on Pluto’ the idea seems to be worthy if the lead character had some style to go with it.

Instead the art direction is all over the place and what should have an audience feeling also liberated for the lead character just becomes an embarrassment for the taste factor alone.

Not many people would object to men wearing dresses if they were of a good quality and had style. Yet ‘Breakfast on Pluto’ seems to suggest its lead character will wear anything designed for a woman and that’s really not worthy of over ninety minutes of cinema time.

Staggeringly dull and extremely tedious
It is a staggeringly dull and extremely tedious film realistically and seems to lack in any interesting direction merely because the subject matter is simply not worthy of the effort involved.

It also lacks any decent music to drive the film along with such a shallow premise, something that other films would demand to at least cover over the horrendous screenplay.

No one, I feel, would object to the premise, but most audiences would object to a film that would bore the living daylights out of the subject matter which is a man wearing a dress – wow.