The Butcher Boy Review
by "Richard Scheib" (roogulator AT hotmail DOT com)September 10th, 1998
THE BUTCHER BOY
Ireland/USA. 1997. Director - Neil Jordan, Screenplay - Jordan & Patrick McCabe, Based on the Novel by McCabe, Producers - Redmond Morris & Stephen Woolley, Photography - Adrian Biddle, Music - Elliot Goldenthal, Visual Effects - Peerless Camera Co (Supervisor - Kent Houston), Special Effects - Joss Williams, Prosthetics - Animated Extras, Production Design - Anthony Pratt. Production Company - Butcher Boy Films/Geffen Pictures.
Eamonn Owens (Francie Brady), Alan Boyle (Joe Purcell), Stephen Rea (Benny Brady/Adult Francie), Fiona Shaw (Mrs Nugent), Brendan Gleeson (Father Bubbles), Milo O’Shea (Father Sullivan), Aisling O’Sullivan (Annie Brady), Andrew Fullerton (Philip Nugent), Sinead O’Connor (Our Lady)
Plot: Growing up in Ireland in the early 1960s, young Francie Brady becomes increasingly troubled and unstable after his mother commits suicide and he is left to be raised by his alcoholic father. Thrown into a Catholic boarding school, he has visions of the Virgin Mary appearing to him. He sees as the focus of his trouble, the self-important town socialite Mrs Nugent who lures his best friend Joe away and turns him against Francie, the alienation of which causes Francie to erupt into violence.
With `The Butcher Boy' Neil Jordan, the highly acclaimed director of the likes of `The Crying Game', `Mona Lisa' and `Michael Collins', dives into tackling Patrick McCabe's celebrated novel about disturbed youth. Jordan and McCabe tackle some difficult themes - the film is a unsettling portrait of a child in an abusive home who becomes increasingly alienated, socially ostracized and eventually locked in an asylum, before the film climaxes in a frightening explosion of violence. But despite the gravity of its thematic matter, `The Butcher Boy' rather contrarily manages to be a remarkably cheerful film. Jordan directs with an enormous degree of vibrance and colour and is abetted to a tremendous extent by a wonderfully charismatic and aggressive performance from Eamonn Owens in the central role.
Indeed it is possibly the most cheerful film ever made about abusive childhoods, alienation, sexual abuse, madness and murder. Just consider the point-of-view it holds which is entirely sympathetically balanced toward the boy, seeking to explain the mechanisms that make the climactic murder a logical act. If this had been a film made in America one cannot help but think it would have been entirely balanced toward the opposite extreme. The conservative social values the character takes issue with would be unquestioningly accepted as a norm and there would have been a wholly unsympathetic and condemnatory attitude toward the boy's actions. The scene, which is presented here with considerable glee, wherein Owens defecates on the carpet of the self-important Mrs Nugent would have been painted in disgusted tones of the highest moral outrage. And the climactic murder would surely be seen in tones of stunned shock, asking how such could possibly happen. Indeed an American version would surely have emerged as something akin to `The Good Son' or the innately evil child seen at the start of `Halloween'. Instead Jordan manages the difficult job of conducting the entire film sympathetically - few audiences realize just to what a sociopathic extreme Jordan does end up taking them by making them laugh along with and enjoy the film. The whole film seems fired up by the sheer perversity of going well beyond acceptable social norms. With considerably iconoclastic delight Jordan casts singer Sinead O'Connor, notorious for ripping up pictures of the Pope on tv, as the Virgin Mary - and predictably O'Connor's second appearance as the Virgin is accompanied by the query "So what the fuck's going on here ?"
It's not Jordan best film but is an immensely enjoyable one nevertheless. And it should be celebrated for the simple fact of being about the first film in the new renaissance of Irish cinema over the last couple of years to not be centered around sectarian violence.
Reviewed at the 1998 Wellington International Film Festival Copyright Richard Scheib 1998
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