The film is divided into 36 chapters. In the fictional Irish town of Tyrellin, bordering Northern Ireland in the late 1970s, cartoon robins narrate as Patrick Braden's mother, Eily Bergin, leaves her baby on the doorstep of the local parochial house, where his father, Father Liam, lives.
Patrick is placed with an unloving foster mother. Male at birth, young Patrick is later shown donning a dress and lipstick, which angers her foster family. Patrick is accepted by her close friends, Charlie, Irwin, and Lawrence, as well as by Lawrence's father, who tells Patrick that Eily looked like blonde American movie star Mitzi Gaynor.
In Patrick's late teens, Patrick gets into trouble in school by writing explicit fiction imagining how she was conceived by her parents and inquiring about where to get a sex change. Patrick comes out as transgender, renames herself Kitten, also going by Patricia, and approaches Father Liam in confession, asking about Eily, but is rebuffed.
Kitten runs away from home, catching a ride with a glam rock band, Billy Hatchet and the Mohawks, and flirting with leader Billy. He installs the lovestruck, homeless Kitten in a trailer, where she discovers he's hiding guns for the IRA.
Meanwhile, Irwin has begun to work with the IRA, much to his now-girlfriend Charlie's dismay. Kitten dismisses Irwin's politics as "serious, serious, serious," but after Lawrence is killed by police detonating a suspected IRA car bomb, she tosses their gun cache into a lake.
Billy abandons Kitten to flee the IRA, forcing her to face the "serious, serious, serious," men alone. Her lack of connection to their politics saves her from being murdered.
Kitten next journeys to London searching for Eily, but initial inquiries prove fruitless. Penniless, she shelters in a tiny cottage in a park, only to find that it's a children's entertainment park for The Wombles.
Kitten gets a job as a singing, dancing Womble, but immediately loses it when her sponsor and co-worker punches their boss. Forced into prostitution, she is violently attacked by her first client, saving herself from strangulation by spraying him in the eyes with Chanel No. 5.
At a diner, magician Bertie Vaughan asks her what she is writing in her notebook. She explains it's the story of "The Phantom Lady" who was "swallowed up" by the big city, then reveals it's about the mother she is seeking. Bertie hires her to be his magician's assistant, turning her life story into a hypnosis act.
On a romantic day trip, Bertie tries to kiss her and she explains that she's transgender, something he already knew. Soon, Charlie finds Bertie's show and takes Kitten away.
Kitten goes to a club frequented by British soldiers and dances with one, only to be injured when the club is bombed by the IRA. Police discover that Kitten is transgender and Irish, so she is arrested as a suspected terrorist.
Beaten and deprived of sleep, she writes a hyperbolic statement, shown in a fantasy spy film spoof sequence. The police's attitude softens, realising she is innocent, and they release her. With no place to go, Kitten begs to stay in the station, but is tossed into the street.
Kitten is again forced to turn tricks, but is saved by one of the cops who interrogated her. He brings her to a peep show where she transforms herself into a blonde. Her repentant father finds her and in a scene mirroring their confessional one, professes his love and tells Kitten where to find Eily.
She goes to her house posing as a telephone company market researcher and discovers a younger half-brother whose name is also Patrick. She faints upon meeting Eily, but after reviving does not reveal her identity.
When Irwin is killed by the IRA, Kitten goes home to tend to a pregnant Charlie and reconcile with her priest father. The town reacts against the unwed mother and her transgender friend living with him by firebombing the parish house. Kitten and Charlie flee to London.
In the final scene, they run into pregnant Eily and little Patrick at the doctor's office, where Charlie is getting post-natal care. Kitten is friendly, but still doesn't reveal who she is.
To prepare for the lead role of Kitten, Murphy studied women's body language and for a few weeks met with a transvestite who instructed him and took him out clubbing with friends.[3]
Neil Jordan and Pat McCabe made big changes to the story in their adaptation of the novel for the silver screen. In the book, the protagonist is called "Pussy", but Jordan and McCabe rename her "Kitten" in the film. Unlike the highly sexual Pussy, who is sexually involved with numerous male and female characters in some rather kinky situations as well as a few long-term relationships, Kitten doesn't even kiss another character on the lips. One sexual encounter for hire is strongly implied, but Kitten is not shown being overtly sexual with anyone on screen. Kitten's flirtatious relationships with the series of male characters she meets throughout the film are never shown or strongly implied to have been consummated, leaving the yearning main character unrequited.
The seaside scene between Kitten and Bertie was considered by some to be an allusion to director Jordan's earlier film The Crying Game,[4] which also involved a transgender major character, the IRA, and actor Stephen Rea. In The Crying Game, Rea's character doesn't realise that the woman he has fallen for and becomes sexually involved with is transgender. In Breakfast on Pluto, Kitten confesses that she's "not a girl" before Rea's character can kiss her, and he says kindly that he already knew, but does not follow through with the kiss.
The author of the novel upon which the film is based, co-screenwriter Patrick McCabe, has a cameo in the film as Kitten's creative writing teacher.[5]
Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 58% of 123 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.1/10.The website's consensus reads: "Well-acted if monotonous drama about a transvestite prostitute in London during the 1970s."[6]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 59 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[7]
Awards and nominations
For his portrayal of Kitten, Murphy won the 2007 IFTA Award for Best Actor[8] and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
Jordan also won the 2007 IFTA for Best Director and Jordan and McCabe took home the Best Script IFTA.[8]
The Crying Game is a 1992 crime thriller film, written and directed by Neil Jordan, produced by Stephen Woolley and Nik Powell, and starring Stephen Rea, Miranda Richardson, Jaye Davidson, Adrian Dunbar, Ralph Brown, and Forest Whitaker. The film explores themes of race, sex, nationality, and sexuality against the backdrop of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Stephen Rea is an Irish actor of stage and screen. Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he began his career as a member of Dublin’s Focus Theatre, and came to the attention of film audiences as one of the close collaborators of director Neil Jordan. He is an Academy Award, Golden Globe Award and Tony Award nominee, a two-time BAFTA Award winner, and a three-time Irish Film and Television (IFTA) Award winner.
Neil Patrick Jordan is an Irish film director, screenwriter, novelist and short-story writer. He won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, a Golden Lion and a Silver Bear. He was honoured with receiving the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1996. He is known for writing and directing acclaimed dramas such as Mona Lisa (1986), The Crying Game (1992), Michael Collins (1996), The Butcher Boy (1997) and The End of the Affair (1999). Jordan also created the Showtime series The Borgias (2011) and Sky Atlantic's Riviera (2017). Jordan is also known as an author. He wrote Night in Tunisia (1976) which won a Somerset Maugham Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1979.
Cillian Murphy is an Irish actor. He made his professional debut in Enda Walsh's 1996 play Disco Pigs, a role he later reprised in the 2001 screen adaptation. His early film credits include the horror film 28 Days Later (2002), the dark comedy Intermission (2003), the thriller Red Eye (2005), the Irish war drama The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), and the science fiction thriller Sunshine (2007). He played a transgender Irish woman in the comedy-drama Breakfast on Pluto (2005), which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination.
Events from the year 1998 in Ireland.
Patrick McCabe is an Irish writer. Known for his mostly dark and violent novels set in contemporary—often small-town—Ireland, McCabe has been twice shortlisted for the Booker Prize, for The Butcher Boy (1992) and Breakfast on Pluto (1998), both of which have been made into films.
Gavin Friday is an Irish singer and songwriter, composer, actor and painter, best known as a founding member of the post-punk group The Virgin Prunes.
Breakfast on Pluto is a 1998 novel by Patrick McCabe. The book was shortlisted for the 1998 Booker Prize, and was adapted for the screen by McCabe and Neil Jordan; Jordan directed the 2005 film. The author derived the novel's title from the 1969 hit record Breakfast On Pluto by Don Partridge.
Pádraic Delaney is an Irish actor known for playing Teddy O'Donovan in the Ken Loach film The Wind That Shakes the Barley, for which he earned an IFTA nomination as well as being named Irish Shooting Star for the 2007 Berlin Film Festival. In addition, he is known for his role as English aristocrat Lord George Boleyn, brother-in-law of King Henry VIII of England in Showtime's The Tudors.
Eva Birthistle is an Irish actress and writer. She is best known for her roles in Bad Sisters and Ae Fond Kiss..., and also starred in The Last Kingdom between 2015 and 2022. She won the London Film Critics Circle British or Irish Actress of the Year Award in 2004, and has twice won the IFTA Best Actress in a Leading Role (Film) award.
The 6th Irish Film & Television Awards took place on 14 February 2009 at the Burlington Hotel in Dublin, and was hosted by Ryan Tubridy. It honoured Irish film and television released in 2008.
Zonad is a comedy film by John and Kieran Carney that premiered in July 2009 at the Galway Film Fleadh. The film went to general release in Ireland March 19, 2010.
The 8th Irish Film & Television Awards were held on 12 February 2011 in the Convention Centre, Dublin.
Laurence Kinlan is an Irish actor in films, television series and on theatre stage. He is best known for playing the role of Elmo in RTÉ's crime drama Love/Hate.
Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh is an Irish costume designer. Much of her career has been in Irish and British-Irish productions, such as Michael Collins (1996), The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006), Brideshead Revisited (2008), Ondine (2009), The Guard (2011), Calvary (2014), The Rhythm Section (2020), Foundation (2021), and The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). She has been nominated eleven times for Best Costume Design from the Irish Film & Television Academy, winning for The Rhythm Section. Other nominations include Emmy, Critics Choice, and Satellite Awards. Eimer was elected to AMPAS in 2020.
The IFTA Film & Drama Awards took place at the Mansion House on 24 May 2015 in Dublin, honouring Irish film and television released in 2014.
Cettin also known as Saint Cettin of Oran or Cethach, Cetagh and Cethagh was a disciple of Saint Patrick. He helped St. Patrick in evangelizing in Ireland. St. Patrick consecrated him as an auxiliary bishop of Oran. He is believed to have died in 5th century. His feast day is 16 June. His shrine at Oran, County Roscommon was a well known place of pilgrimage, and survived until the end of the eighteenth century.
The 16th Irish Film & Television Academy Awards took place on 18 October 2020. Because no ceremony was held in 2019, this ceremony honoured films and television drama released in both 2018 and 2019. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, no physical ceremony took place; instead, there was a "virtual ceremony" hosted by Deirdre O’Kane.
Ruth McCabe is an Irish stage, screen and voice actress known from Clones, County Monaghan. She is known for starring as Kay Curley in Stephen Frears'The Snapper, Christy Brown's paramour Mary in My Left Foot, and Wyn Ryan, sister of Dr. Sam Ryan, in three seasons of Silent Witness. She originated the role of Kay McCoy, proprietor of McCoy's bar in RTÉ's soap opera Fair City.
The 20th Irish Film & Television Academy Awards, also called the IFTA Film & Drama Awards 2024 or the 21st Anniversary IFTA Awards, took place on 20 April 2024. The ceremony was hosted by Baz Ashmawy at the Dublin Royal Convention Centre. It honoured Irish films and television drama released between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2023. The nominations were announced on 14 March 2024. The Rising Star nominees were announced on 9 April 2024.
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