Patrick “Kitten” Braden (Cillian Murphy) has a story to tell, and even for a fashionably flamboyant boy-girl strolling through mid-1970’s London it is one you don’t see coming. Born in the small town of Tyreelin, Ireland in 1958, Kitten is left in the care of a shell-shocked priest named Father Bernard (Liam Neeson). He in turn leaves the child with cantankerous pub owner Ma Braden (Ruth McCabe), revealing to the kid around his tenth birthday that she’s not really his mother.

So who is Patrick Braden’s mother? This question starts a two decade quest to find the truth, a journey that takes the beguiling trans person from the local dance clubs of Ireland to the hideouts of pro-IRA enthusiasts looking to shut down the British government. Through every travail; every mock, every stare, every beating, every terror; somehow Kitten rises above the fray, never losing the unique effervescence that makes him unique. Running through the years in increasingly higher heels and sultrier shades of lipgloss, Kitten never shies from the ultimate goal, doing all he can to finally meet the parents who left him to be raised by others.

Neil Jordan’s “Breakfast on Pluto” is an odd movie. That brief synopsis doesn’t even begin to do it justice. The thing is, as strong as it is in bits and pieces on the whole it all comes across as nothing more than an overlong greatest hits reel highlighting the acclaimed director’s better works. Bits of “The Company of Wolves,” slabs of “Mona Lisa,” chunks of “The Crying Game,” layers of “Interview with the Vampire,” helpings of “Michael Collins” and “The Butcher Boy,” all colliding one into the other to create a whimsically familiar whole that’s not remotely as entertaining as it should be. It’s a disappointment, and as much as I would like to say otherwise there just isn’t any other word good enough to describe it.

Shame, really, because there is plenty here to applaud. Working with author Patrick McCabe for the second time since “The Butcher Boy,” there is an amusing historical tale resting at this story’s center. Kitten’s journey is not without interest or insight, and more than once I found myself completely enthralled to the point of actual wonderment. One vignette in particular stood out the most for me. After a sequence of spellbinding terror, Kitten encounters a kindly and slightly odd magician named Bertie (Jordan regular Stephen Rea) who ends up using the pleasant ingénue as part of his twisted act. It’s a startling sequence, funny and perverse in all the right ways showing the director at his maniacally gonzo best.

Unfortunately, none of it holds together. One scene bleeds into the other and the whole enterprise slowly starts to resemble a fragmented comic book more than a high-quality auteur-driven motion picture. Worse, there is no mystery to Kitten’s adventure, the identity of his/her parents so clear from the very first frame Jordan might as well have spelled things out in brightly colored blinking neon subtitles. At almost 130-minutes, “Breakfast on Pluto” is unbearably long, and while I might actually convince myself sometime down the line this all might have worked as 15 to 20 minute shorts on Cable television, as a movie I’m positive very little could have been done to save it.

There is one unquestioned triumph here, and that is the performance of Murphy. The actor caps off a phenomenal year that began with “Batman Begins” and “Red Eye” finishing up by delivering a performance that’s borderline remarkable. Murphy is stunning; scaling to heights as the androgynous Kitten other actors of his generation probably would have been completely timorous to ascend. It is a sensational turn, so full of light, energy and emotion it is impossible not the come away from this completely in awe as to what the actor was able to accomplish.

I just wish I liked the movie more. The picture is shot magnificently (by the great Declan Quinn) and filled with songs befitting its eclectic decades-spanning style. But it is all for not, and as hard as everyone here is obviously working to bring it to life I just can’t muster up the enthusiasm to care. As much as I admire Jordan’s efforts, for all intents and purposes I can’t help thinking “Breakfast on Pluto” would be better off screening on another planet.

Film Rating: êê  (out of 4)