Breakfast On Pluto (film) - Plot

Plot

A glamorously made-up Patrick "Kitten" Braden, pushing a baby in a pram and flirting insouciantly with construction workers, introduces her life story. Intricately plotted, the film is divided over more than 30 brief chapters. In the fictional Irish town of Tyrellin, near the border of Northern Ireland in the late 1940s, cartoon robins narrate as baby Patrick's mother abandons him on the doorstep of the local parochial house where his father, Father Liam, lives. He is then placed with an unloving foster mother. A young Patrick is later shown donning a dress and lipstick, which angers his foster family. However, Patrick is accepted by his close friends Charlie, Irwin, and Lawrence, as well as by Lawrence's father, who tells Patrick that his biological mother looked like blonde American movie star Mitzi Gaynor.

The story is quickly moved ahead to Patrick's late teen years in the early '70s. Patrick gets into trouble in school by writing explicit fiction imagining how he was conceived by Father Liam and Liam's young housekeeper Eily Bergin and by inquiring about where to get a sex change. Patrick renames himself/herself as "Kitten," also using the name Patricia. She approaches her father in confession, asking about her mother, but is rebuffed. Kitten soon runs away from home, catching a ride with a glam rock band, Billy Hatchet and the Mohawks, and striking up a flirtation with leader Billy. Billy installs the lovestruck, homeless Kitten in a trailer home where she discovers he's hiding guns smuggled for the Irish Republican Army. Meanwhile, Irwin has begun to work with the IRA, much to the dismay of his now-girlfriend Charlie. Kitten dismisses Irwin's politics as "serious, serious, serious," but after Lawrence is killed by police detonating a suspected IRA car bomb, she tosses the IRA gun cache into a lake. Billy abandons Kitten to flee the IRA, while Kitten plays crazy, so that she won't be shot.

Kitten next journeys to London to search for her mother, but initial inquiries prove fruitless. Penniless, she finds shelter in a tiny cottage in a park, only to find that it's a children's entertainment park for The Wombles. She gets a job as a singing, dancing Womble, but immediately loses it when her sponsor and co-worker punches their boss. Forced into prostitution, she is violently attacked by her first client, saving herself from strangulation by spraying him in the eyes with Chanel No. 5 perfume. At a diner, magician Bertie Vaughan asks her what she is writing in her notebook. She explains that it's the story of "The Phantom Lady" who was "swallowed up" by the big city, then reveals that it's about the mother she is seeking. Bertie hires her to be his magician's assistant, exploiting her life story in a hypnosis act. The two take a romantic day trip, but Kitten explains that she's not really a girl when Bertie tries to kiss her. Bertie says that he already knew this. Soon, Charlie finds Bertie's show and takes Kitten away.

Next, Kitten goes to a club frequented by British soldiers and dances with a soldier, only to be injured when the club is bombed by the IRA. When police discover that Kitten is biologically male and Irish, she is arrested as a suspected terrorist. Beaten and prevented from sleeping, she writes a hyperbolic statement, shown in a fantasy spy film spoof sequence. The cops soften, realising that she is innocent, and release her. With no place to go, Kitten begs to stay in the police station, but is tossed to the street. Kitten is again forced to turn tricks, but is saved by one of the cops who interrogated her. He brings her to a peep show where she transforms herself into a high femme blonde. Her repentant father finds her and in a scene that mirrors their confessional scene, professes his love and tells Kitten where to find her mother. She goes to her mother's house posing as a telephone company market researcher and discovers a younger half-brother whose name is also Patrick. She faints upon meeting her mother, but after reviving does not reveal her true self.

When Irwin is killed by the IRA, Kitten goes home to tend to a pregnant Charlie. However, the town reacts against the unwed mother and her transgender friend by firebombing the parish house. Kitten and Charlie flee to London. In the final scene, they run into Kitten's pregnant mother Eily and little Patrick at the doctor's office, where Charlie is getting post-partum care. Kitten is friendly, but still doesn't reveal her true identity.