Jordan and McCabe's real triumph here, however, is the tenderness with which they imbues "Kitten," and the astonishing grace with which the extraordinary Murphy pulls it off.

Playful, poetic, shocking, saddening, and ultimately gratifyingly and honestly big-hearted.

[Murphy] makes a thrillingly flesh-and-blood creature of Kitten, with her yearning, her droll, self-deprecating wit, her breathless romanticism and her puckish vibrancy. It's easily the most fun bit of screen acting this year, and as rich and nuanced as the lead in any drama.

The movie is like a Dickens novel in which the hero moves through the underskirts of society, encountering one colorful character after another.

It is the central performance that holds us. Cillian Murphy glows.

For Jordan, this is a return to top form.

Cillian Murphy gives a tour de force performance.

Jordan is always best on his native Irish turf, and he's in grand mischievous form in this picaresque fable.

If you like your boys pretty and your stories incredible, this movie is for you.

In substance and style, the movie is more than a few tears short of Jordan's "The Crying Game." But Murphy is an actor to watch. Even in heels.

Cillian Murphy plays a hyper-feminine transvestite who spends much of the movie traipsing about an increasingly violent landscape in search of his long lost mother. His whirligig encounters, political and sexual, rarely soar.

Thanks to Jordan's bravura storytelling, Breakfast on Pluto is one of very few movies this year truly worth remembering.

Jordan unites his favorite actors -- Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea, Ian Hart and Brendan Gleeson -- with the swoony presence of the talented 29-year-old Cillian Murphy.

Known for his visual images, Jordan outdoes himself in "Breakfast,'' a feast for the eyes.