BREAKFAST ON PLUTO (2005). Based on the Patrick McCabe novel (he also co-wrote the screenplay), Neil Jordan's film serves up Cillian Murphy as cross-dressing Candide Patrick "Kitten" Braden, who was born at a bad time in a bad place -- the town of Tyreelin on the northern border of the Republic in 1958 -- and further cursed by her parentage: Father Bernard (Liam Neeson) by way of housekeeper and Mitzi Gaynor look-alike Eily Bergin (Eva Birthistle). Mother leaves him on dad's doorstep and is "swallowed up by London." Unloved and fabulous, Kitten copes by dressing up and dreaming. Her wit and whimsy and disregard for reality keep her going, but when childhood friends Charlie (Ruth Negga) and Irwin (Laurence Kinlan) grow up and fall in love with each other, Kitten sets off on a picaresque search for her lost mother, hooking up first with Billy Hatchet (Gavin Friday), leader of the singing Mohawks, then heading to London and becoming a partner in the magic show of smitten Bertie (Stephen Rea). Narrated by Kitten in coyly titled chapters, shot in bubblegum colors dimly lit as if by a dying fire, and backed by a soundtrack of every bad song from the early '70s (and some great ones too), the film insists that great clothes, a passion for Bobby Goldsboro, and an all-forgiving fantasy life can overcome terrorist bombs and interrogations by Scotland Yard. (129m)