trendaway.com

Tonight we screened the world premiere of Neil Jordan’s Breakfast On Pluto at the Ryerson theatre/auditorium. The film is based Patrick McCabe’s novel of the same name. The room holds 1200 people, so even though we were part of a huge lineup, we had pretty good ground-level seats. You could feel the excitement and anticipation in the room, and when my friend told me that he saw Cillian Murphy in the lobby, that partially explained it. I went out and almost bumped into Liam Neeson, and later I found out that Bono was there (no big deal for me, though - actually, it’s kind of annoying).

Anyway, this was the second TIFF screening for me, but this one had a bunch of celebrities there, too, so it made it a bit more exciting. Neil Jordan introduced the film and brought onstage his producers as well as Neeson and Murphy. The applause was thunderous and finally the movie began.

Overall, I really liked it. There were a few things that I didn’t like, but overall I felt that Jordan had complete control over his film. So, even if I didn’t like something (i.e., the talking robins), I felt as if I was still watching something that was completely intentional and purposeful. It was interesting to see how good Murphy’s comedic instinct is, since I’ve never seen him in this kind of role. Neeson doesn’t have much screen time, but he was brilliant as ever. The 70’s were recreated amazingly. Murphy’s costumes were striking.

One thing that I liked was that the cross-dressing thing wasn’t really a major theme. It was presented as part of the character, rather than being treated as a gimmick. Apparently some details were changed considerably in many parts, but author McCabe co-wrote the screenplay (which makes it okay…?). I will need to see it on DVD with subtitles, though, because I always have a bit of trouble understanding Irish accents.