Metascore
59 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 36 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 20 out of 36
  2. Negative: 3 out of 36
  1. Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    100
    Jordan and McCabe's real triumph here, however, is the tenderness with which they imbues "Kitten," and the astonishing grace with which the extraordinary Murphy pulls it off.
  2. Reviewed by: Glenn Kenny
    100
    Playful, poetic, shocking, saddening, and ultimately gratifyingly and honestly big-hearted.
  3. 91
    [Murphy] makes a thrillingly flesh-and-blood creature of Kitten, with her yearning, her droll, self-deprecating wit, her breathless romanticism and her puckish vibrancy. It's easily the most fun bit of screen acting this year, and as rich and nuanced as the lead in any drama.
  4. 88
    The movie is like a Dickens novel in which the hero moves through the underskirts of society, encountering one colorful character after another.
  5. 80
    If you like your boys pretty and your stories incredible, this movie is for you.
  6. 80
    For Jordan, this is a return to top form.
  7. Reviewed by: David Ansen
    80
    Jordan is always best on his native Irish turf, and he's in grand mischievous form in this picaresque fable.
  8. It is the central performance that holds us. Cillian Murphy glows.
  9. 80
    Cillian Murphy gives a tour de force performance.
  10. 75
    In substance and style, the movie is more than a few tears short of Jordan's "The Crying Game." But Murphy is an actor to watch. Even in heels.
  11. 75
    Thanks to Jordan's bravura storytelling, Breakfast on Pluto is one of very few movies this year truly worth remembering.
  12. Known for his visual images, Jordan outdoes himself in "Breakfast,'' a feast for the eyes.
  13. Jordan remains faithful to the looney sensibility of a hero, who is hard to take, but in his refusal to acquiesce to the social humdrum, is like a saint, or at least an artist.
  14. Cillian Murphy plays a hyper-feminine transvestite who spends much of the movie traipsing about an increasingly violent landscape in search of his long lost mother. His whirligig encounters, political and sexual, rarely soar.
  15. Jordan unites his favorite actors -- Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea, Ian Hart and Brendan Gleeson -- with the swoony presence of the talented 29-year-old Cillian Murphy.
  16. In a year overcrowded with wonderful performances by lead actors, Mr. Murphy's immensely appealing turn ranks among the strongest.
  17. 67
    A charming, winsome slice of Seventies pop kitsch reconceived as a kind of Knight-errant quest for that holiest of all grails, dear old mom.
  18. 67
    At over two hours, Breakfast on Pluto is too much of a merely pretty and pretty good thing.
  19. However great Murphy is in this film, even greater is Liam Neeson as Father Bernard.
  20. 63
    Ambles along nicely, but feels as if it's never going to end.
  21. Reviewed by: Anna Smith
    60
    This has charm and glamour but little profundity.
  22. 60
    Though he (Jordan) directs with admirable skill, his usual touches don't drive the film--which occasionally threatens to lose its shape.
  23. Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    60
    A more down-to-earth actor would sentimentalize Breakfast on Pluto and make for an awkward fit with its peculiar mix of tones. Murphy's strangeness--his chill estrangement--makes his campy "Kitten" persona more poignant.
  24. Although "Pluto" has a rollicky, endearing air, it's cooler than Jordan's other films.
  25. Tedious portrait of a troubled Rolling Stone.
  26. Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    50
    Some road pictures take you somewhere. Breakfast on Pluto, from its archly poetic title on down, promises a lulu. Yes, well. Promises, promises.
  27. Cross-dressing and the Irish Troubles don't mix well in Neil Jordan's cloying, fanciful Breakfast on Pluto.
  28. Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    50
    Murphy's breathy, high voice as Kitten feels forced, but not nearly as much as the film's efforts to be both whimsical and weighty.
  29. Breakfast on Pluto, like its cross-dressing heroine, is appealing yet irritating, fun company at times but just as often a bore, occasionally quite touching yet frequently fey and self-indulgent.
  30. 50
    Jordan is trying for a surrealist romp, and it's as coy and callow as you'd expect from a movie with a lead character nicknamed Kitten.
  31. In the end, his (Patrick) disaffection make him a singularly uninvolving character, and his disengagement makes him seem alternately shallow, selfish and perverse.
  32. Reviewed by: Todd McCarthy
    50
    Despite numerous surface pleasures, including a beguiling pop soundtrack and presence of rising star Cillian Murphy in the lead role, dramatic shortcomings spell a mixed overall reception.
  33. Jordan lets slip virtually every rudiment of drama. He never deigns to develop his characters, he coats the movie in a wet blanket of whimsy, and he lets pop songs do his work for him more lavishly than Cameron Crowe did in "Elizabethtown."
  34. 25
    Despite the movie's bouncy ebullience (courtesy of a terrific period soundtrack) and dashes of fantasy, the film quickly becomes an endurance test.
  35. Breakfast on Pluto, with an impressive cast that includes Liam Neeson and Brendan Gleeson, deploys its whimsy in many ways, all of them cloying.
  36. May be Jordan's wildest mis-shot yet, so dense with dying fizzle and limp ideas that I began to wonder if Jordan has an evil twin, or if there are in fact several Neil Jordans, among them at least one literate stylist and one humor-handicapped village idiot.
User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 27 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 13
  2. Negative: 0 out of 13
  1. 10
    Once again, the users have more collective insight than the critics. This film was lovely: funny, sad, and hopeful without ever straining after cheap emotion. The raves for Cillian Murphy's performance are richly deserved; his "Kitten" is sensitive, imaginative and sweet but also callow and self-absorbed, though this shortcoming that so peeves the critics (who, presumably, were running soup kitchens when THEY were 17) helps protect him from the violence in his life. Moreover, he gives it up in the course of the film, moving from sentimental, overly-scripted fantasies about love to the real thing with all its muddle and mess. Unlike "The Crying Game," the IRA is at the edges of this film, which I found interesting and probably closer to the experience of most in Northern Ireland and England at the time. The conflict would fade away entirely as the film attended to private concerns, exploding back onto the screen when least expected. There's lots more to praise: wonderful casting, even in very small roles (seeing Bryan Ferry was fun); outstanding costumes; perfect music, not only to evoke the period but also to comment on the action. I think Neil Jordan hit this one out of the ballpark, to use a phrase American critics will recognize, and I'm sorry it didn't garner more of their accolades. Oh well, they didn't like "Blade Runner" either, which may actually have helped the film's reputation. Full Review »
  2. DrewF.
    9
    Tremendous lead performance from Murphy. Too bad it was such a tough year (with so many quality lead actor performances), cause this really was worthy of Oscar consideration. The movie itself is at times funny, touching, heart wrenching, and ultimately uplifting. Loved every moment of it, including the absolute funniest scene of any film that I saw last year (Kitten takes on the troops). Full Review »
  3. Mart
    4
    Are you having a laugh Neil Jordan?This was painful to watch from start to finish, even though I really tried to like it.Being Irish, I thought I'd see something the American reviewers missed.I didn't.Cillian Murphy's character is nothing but annoying and (as the L.A. Times says) "shallow,selfish and perverse."I insisted my girlfriend go watch it with me; she hasn't looked at me the same since. Full Review »