Written and directed by Neil Jordan

Based on the novel by Pat McCabe

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea and Brendan Gleeson

135 minutes

Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game is easily the most significant thriller made in the past 25 years, if for no other reason than it’s the only one that owes nothing to the genius of Alfred Hitchcock. It is also probably the single most essential gay-acceptance film ever made. By the time we discover that she is a he, even the most homophobic observer, drawn in by audience word-of-mouth that refused to reveal the film’s secret, would be hard pressed not to have been won over by Dil’s story.

The years since The Crying Game found Jordan directing his one major commercial nod (Interview with a Vampire), a pair of muddled Irish films celebrating descents into madness (Michael Collins, The Butcher Boy) and The Good Thief, an unspeakably useless remake of Jean-Pierre Melville’s masterful Bob le Flambeur. At a kill-or-cure point in his artistic growth, Jordan finds Lourdes in the life of Patrick “Kitten” Braden (Cillian Murphy), a cross-dressing teenager searching for his mother amidst the turmoil of IRA bombings and glam London in the ’70s. This time around, all of Jordan’s preoccupations meld to produce 2005’s best picture.

The film is told in flashbacks, generally a signal in contemporary cinema that we are about to be subjected to a traditional set-’em-up-to-watch-’em die (La Bamba, Terms of Endearment, The Passion of the Christ). There are even cute, talking Disneyfied CG robins heralding the arrival of a foundling deposited on the steps of a church in Tyreelin, Ireland. Reminding myself that, given the subject matter, these mechanical birds probably owe more to Blue Velvet than to Mary Poppins, I gripped my armrests and hunkered down.

Father Bernard (Liam Neeson) dispatches the urchin to the care of barkeep Ma Braden (Ruth McCabe), a domineering old harridan, and as Patrick grows to adolescence, she is aghast to discover her 9-year-old consignment modeling his stepsister’s dress and lipstick. At about this time, young Patrick begins to ponder his own sexual identity in addition to the one pressing question that will haunt him over the next 135 minutes: Who is my real mother?

Despite his unconventional appearance, Patrick is not without a posse. Down syndrome, used as an unremitting punchline in The Ringer, is given an honest, unsentimental face in the form of Laurence (Seamus Reilly). Brilliantly relying on a character whose handicap presents more than a little built-in public rejection, Jordan introduces a mentally challenged, socially scorned friend for Patrick to call his own. Along with Charlie (Ruth Negga) and Irwin (Emmet Lawlor McHugh), the foursome fancies themselves as IRA rebels, but their ploy amounts to little more than Laurence trying to reclaim the streets of Tyreelin dressed as one of Dr. Who’s robots. It is Laurence’s understanding father (Paraic Breathnach) who introduces Patrick to several truths concerning his mother: She was the prettiest girl in town, who bore more than a passing resemblance to American movie star Mitzi Gaynor, and he once spotted her on a London street.

Feeling that “the biggest city in the world swallowed up my mother,” and with nothing more than an “I’ve tried my best. I’m off” to his foster family, it isn’t long before Patrick dons glam-rock duds and mascara, and heads off to jolly old England. Not unlike Oz’s Dorothy, our heroine, who by now asks to be referred to as Kitten, encounters four father substitutes along her road to enlightenment. Father Bernard may have done his best when it came to placing the orphan, but grown-up talk of Kitten’s mother’s whereabouts finds him making a hasty exit from the confessional. The outwardly straight Billy Hatchet (Gavin Friday), front man for the glam-rockabilly band Billy Rock and the Mohawks, is besotted by the gorgeous Kitten and momentarily becomes her knight in shining armor. Bertie (Stephen Rea) a low-rent magician/hypnotist captivated by Kitten’s tragic tales (and the bruises on her neck), invites Kitten to be his audience ringer. Awakening in a miniature kiddie castle, Kitten finds John-Joe (Brendan Gleeson), an alcoholic theme-park employee who lands her a job dressed in a “Wombles” costume. The four fathers’ one common thread – just like mother, at one point they all abandon Kitten.

Despite the ever-present political themes at work in Jordan’s films, he doesn’t necessarily view these beliefs as vital. “Look, I spent my 20s in Dublin and London,” he said. “The fact that there was political violence in Ireland was like a blight on everybody’s life. What interests me is how individuals work with what they’ve been given… Pluto is really more about a beautiful soul than about politics or violence.”

Budding revolutionaries Charlie and Irwin also make their way to London. In the film’s most poignant scene, Kitten escorts Charlie to a clinic where she makes a last-minute decision not to get an abortion. Outside, Charlie confides, “You said it would be a disaster like you. But I love you, you fucking disaster.”

The film is not without a few flaws. Any IRA agent worth their salt would never confuse soft Kitten with a bomb-wielding terrorist. Nor did I understand the film’s absolute avoidance of Kitten’s private sex life. Sure, there are a few johns along the way, but we never see her get down with any of her primary mentors. There is also one facile fantasy sequence, in which Kitten does her best latexed Emma Peel, that adds nothing.

Cillian Murphy’s performance is nothing short of miraculous. Those who saw 28 Days Later and Batman Begins had to have been taken aback by Murphy’s delicate bone structure and piercing green eyes. When we first meet Patrick, he’s all polyester shirts, bell-bottom trousers and a Claudette Colbert coiffeur. From the get-go, The Crying Game presented its unwitting audience with a female character. Without the cock close-up, the question of Dil’s sexuality never would have arisen. (To those of you who claim to have instantly cracked the “secret” by spotting Dil’s Adam’s apple, I politely respond, “Bullshit.”) Unlike Tootsie (a film that asserts men make better women than women do) and Victor, Victoria (Julie Andrews as a man?!), there was never any doubt in my mind as to Murphy’s representation. By the time Kitten sits perched atop a peepshow swing fielding confessions from a gaggle of perverted businessmen, you will have completely forgotten that you’re watching a man play a woman.

Aside from a few piano selections composed by the director’s daughter, Anna, the film dodges any trace of a traditional score. Nowadays too many movies convert pre-existing songs into background music simply to bolster soundtrack sales. Not since George Lucas’ American Graffiti (yes, he did direct at least one film that addressed humankind) and Peter Bogdanovich’s overlooked They All Laughed has a film made such remarkable use of popular music as a running commentary. Jordan is no slouch when it comes to song placement. Remember, it was Percy Sledge’s “When a Man Loves a Woman” that ironically underscored The Crying Game’s opening credits

Kitten looks to the popular music his mother listened to as a means of identification. According to Jordan (who personally chose all the soundtrack selections), “He kind of believed in the naïve sugary hopefulness of the lyrics of pop songs.” From the Rubettes’ bouncy “Sugar Baby Love,” played underneath our introduction to Kitten as she pushes a tram, through the lyrics for Middle of the Road’s outrageously appropriate “Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep” (“Where’s your momma gone, little baby bird”), every song is positioned for a reason. I never thought I’d say it, but the film single-handedly justifies the existence of Bobby Goldsboro’s super-sickly death ode “Honey” and Morris Albert’s “Feelings,” the one song that found us all reaching in repugnance for our car radio tuners.

Jordan’s “How does somebody survive a deeply aggressive world just by being himself?” approach is almost as intense as Kitten’s quest for family. Even with a backdrop of political violence, police brutality and social ignorance, Kitten’s incredible journey is rife with fairytale good cheer; nothing will stop him from getting at the truth. Not an ounce of self-pity or cloying, clichéd “I’m more woman than you’ll ever be and more man than you’ll ever get” dialogue, Breakfast on Pluto marks a return to form for Neil Jordan, one of gay cinema’s most resolutely compassionate voices.

Rating: Four Stars