Every once in a while, a provocative and disturbing film comes along that polarizes moviegoers into two distinct camps. Some find the material thought provoking, and its intensity and visual style exhilarating. Others, however, find the proceedings unappealing if not downright appalling. "The Butcher Boy," the latest film from director Neil Jordan of "The Crying Game" and "Interview With The Vampire" fame, is exactly such a film.
The problem, at least for me, is that even several days after seeing this release, I'm still not entirely sure into which camp I fall. The film is definitely disturbing -- a twelve-year-old sociopath's descent into ever greater madness -- but Jordan presents it in such a surreal, sideshow-like, and hell's a-poppin' fashion that you're never quite sure whether you should look away or just stare at the oddities. It's as if he's combined the most bizarre qualities of the works from Terry Gilliam ("Brazil") and Tim Burton ("Edward Scissorhands") and then funneled them through some sort of hallucinogenic cheesecloth, resulting in what we experience on screen.
The film is also quite reminiscent of another highly controversial film from several decades ago, "A Clockwork Orange." The similarities -- whether intentional or not -- are striking and numerous. Both feature a young European sociopath who lives by his own set of rules and terrorizes the locals in his neighborhood, and each tale is fondly and colorfully retold by a narrator in hindsight (including comments about getting the "not a bad bastard anymore" award that easily could have been said by Malcolm McDowell's character in Stanley Kubrick's classic).
Both also effectively use music to accentuate the proceedings -- albeit of much different styles with "Clockwork" synthesizing Beethoven's work, and "Butcher Boy" using frenetic tunes mixed with bizarre additions such as a "Hawaiianized" version of "Mack The Knife."
Unlike "A Clockwork Orange," however, this film never pulls the audience deeply into the story. While it's visually mesmerizing, the sheer amount of "weird" material -- while effective at keeping the audience continuously off balance -- doesn't allow us to really care about the characters or what's occurring. One simply watches in amazement or horror -- much like witnessing a horrific car accident -- but there are so many such "accidents" that the effect becomes numbing.
In addition, the film doesn't change or grow in its approach. Whereas "Clockwork" posed the sociological question about whether the "cure" to such behavior was actually worse than the symptoms, this film follows a straight path into madness and has too much out of control momentum to make it back out or do anything else. While it hints at what might have caused Francie's "condition" (the ultimate dysfunctional family, cold war worries, etc...) this film hasn't set out to directly point fingers.
Our "conductor" for this trip is fifteen-year-old Eamonn Owens as young Francie Brady. Perfectly capturing and balancing the charming, but wise innocense of an outgoing prepubescent boy and the psychopathic behavior of a troubled delinquent, what's most surprising about Owen's performance is that it's his first. Performing like a veteran actor, Owens easily commands the screen. While not as "likeable" or sympathetic as Malcolm McDowell's character in "Clockwork," Owen's take as Francie isn't completely without some moments where you wonder how this precocious kid could do such horrible things. Even so, he's the most terrifying kid to appear on screen since the Udvarnoky brothers in the spooky 1972 horror film, "The Other." Don't be surprised to see a great deal of quality work from this talented young actor in the future.
The rest of the performances are good, but not outstanding, simply because Owens dominates the time on screen. Steven Rea (nominated for "The Crying Game") is competent as Francie's alcoholic father, but playing a slovenly and nearly passed out drunk limits what he's able to deliver. Meanwhile, Fiona Shaw ("My Left Foot"), as Francie's arch nemesis neighbor, Mrs. Nugent, is fun in a Miss Gulch sort of way (Margaret Hamilton's non-witch character in "The Wizard Of Oz"), but her character isn't explored or developed enough to be as effective as she could have been.
While Jordan's other recent efforts have shown strong, linear narrative styles, this film falls all over the map. Additionally, like so many pictures based in Ireland, the accents are so strong that you constantly worry that you're missing bits and pieces of what's being said. Although we hate their use, some subtitles would definitely have been helpful. In any case, the end result of both problems is that we're always kept at a distance from the proceedings and thus are never able to become emotionally involved in the story or the characters.
It's disturbing watching a kid self-destruct, but in the end we never really empathize with his plight. Even so, the film is very powerful and does contain scenes that you won't forget for some time after seeing it. Whether you'll love it or hate it is hard to say, and time may even change your initial opinion of the film, but one thing's for certain. It's not like anything else you'll probably see this year. Still mixed in our reaction to the film, we give "The Butcher Boy" a 5.5 out of 10.