Imaginative, shocking, and wholly unlike any coming-of-age narrative Ireland had seen before, Disco Pigs is the story of two teenagers consumed by their intense and exclusive friendship. Runt (Elaine Cassidy) and Pig (Cillian Murphy), known to their parents as Sinéad and Darren, have been friends and partners-in-crime their entire lives. Threatening this is the onset of maturity; as they approach seventeen, Runt begins to connect with the world beyond Pig, discovering sexual desires and a need for a wider circle of friends that Pig cannot even feel, far less satisfy.

The offbeat, enigmatic quality of Cillian Murphy is already in evidence here as he reprises his 1996 stage role (which he played opposite Eileen Walsh’s Runt), alongside Elaine Cassidy’s tremulous teen as they teeter on the brink of an exciting new world. The film, adapted by Enda Walsh from his stage play, was director Kirsten Sheridan’s remarkable feature debut.

Notes by Sunniva O’Flynn