The Butcher Boy

Gut-wrenchingly bleak adaptation of Patrick McCabe's acclaimed novel of the the same name,"The Butcher Boy" chronicles the unhinging of adolescent Francie Brady. At the start, we are told by the now-adult Francie,"Twenty or thirty or forty years ago, they were all after me on account of what I'd done on Mrs. Nugent." Before the said event we meet Francie, (Eamonn Owens) and Mrs. Nugent (Fiona Shaw,) a rather snobbish middle-aged neighbor.

Francie's feud with Mrs. Nugent starts when he is caught with his best friend Joe trying to take her son Philip's large comic book collection, and later sneaking the Nugent's apples. Mrs. Nugent storms over to the Brady household, telling Francie's mother that their family are no better than pigs. After she leaves, Francie's mother, asks her son if he'd ever let her down."No, Ma. I wouldn't."

Francie's home life is not good. Da (Stephan Rea) is a bitter alcoholic who gets drunk and mistreats his wife. Ma (Aisling O'Sullivan) is needy and unbalanced, and it isn't too long until she has a mental breakdown and winds up in the 'garage,' so called because it's where you go to get fixed.

When Francie suddenly finds himself alone in the world, his imagination, which has always been a coping mechanism, takes a dangerous turn, and he begins blaming Mrs. Nugent for the desinigration of his family and the loss of his only friend. He starts to completely lose his grip on reality, and we are thrown towards the increasingly inevitable, brutal act of violence that shakes the lives of all his neighbors.

As it is begin adapted from a novel to a film, "The Butcher Boy" loses some of it's subtlety. This is a small but noticeable flaw which is hard to undo. One of the book's traits was that we were never completely sure whether Francie was lying, imagining, or hallucinating.

For instance, Mrs Nugent was an obnoxious snob who became a scapegoat for her deranged young neighbor's delusions. The movie seems to be trying harder to demonize her, turning her from mean to more malevolent. She is seen in the film watching as her brother and his friend beat up Francie in retaliation for a prank he pulled on the Nugents.

I believe this is supposed to be reality, trying to further humanize his aggression towards her. It is unnecessary, and a departure from the book, which never tried to make Mrs. Nugent into a monster, but rather disturbingly chronicled the events and causes leading up to the crime.

Besides this, I have few major problems, and many good things to say. The acting is good, and both first-timer Eamonn Owens and Alan Boyle (as Joe) were impressive. The subtle tinge of dark humor became more prevalent on screen, which neither added nor detracted from the experience, just making it different. The soundtrack was bizarre and provocative, stepping between sad melodies and almost gleeful tunes, helping Francie's twisted mentality sink in.

In Roger Ebert's three-out-of-five review, he said that he didn't 'connect the way he wanted to,' and seemed to think the series of tragedies was overkill. I think that some actual people do have lives like this, and an interesting and disturbing presentation help make the story seem more real. As for the rest of us, we should be glad we're not those people (Rated R.)

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