Menu
Director
Neil Jordan
Credits
Producers: Stephen Woolley, Redmond Morris. Writers: Neil Jordan, Pat McCabe.
Principal Cast
Eamon Owens, Stephen Rea, Fiona Shaw, Alan Boyle, Brendan Gleeson
Category
FeatureClassicLiterature
Neil Jordan's twisted version of a coming of age story, The Butcher Boy brings the viewer into the bizarre world of Francie Brady (Eamonn Owens). With an alcoholic father (Stephen Rea) and suicidal mother (Aisling O’Sullivan) at home, Francie lives vicariously through comic books, TV serials, and the adventures he has with his best friend Joe Purcell (Alan Boyle). When his mother’s death is followed by the slow loss of his friends and family, Francie finds himself falling into madness, irrationally blaming his losses on Mrs Nugent (Fiona Shaw), the middle-class mother of a local boy. Bringing together a variety of themes from clerical sex abuse to the arrival of American popular culture in Ireland, The Butcher Boy is set during the Cuban Missile Crisis and plays on themes of apocalypse to tell a story about a young boy who has his life collapse around him.
110 minutes, United States, 1997, Colour
ARCHIVE AT LUNCHTIME: MCGAHERN: SHORT STORIES (DOUBLE BILL) 13.20
BLACKBIRD BLACKBIRD BLACKBERRY 11:00, 20:10
IFI & GAZE: UNMASCED: BEYOND THE AGGRESSIVES: 25 YEARS LATER 20.30
IFI & GAZE: UNMASCED: BUTCHES AND BOYS 18.15
IFI & GAZE: UNMASCED: OUTITUDE 13.30
IFI & GAZE: UNMASCED: SCANNÁIN SAPPHIC (IRISH LESBIAN SHORTS) 15.30
KIDNAPPED 14:30
LOVE LIES BLEEDING 16:10, 20:50
PERFECT DAYS 17:20
THAT THEY MAY FACE THE RISING SUN 11.30, 13.50, 18.30
THE TEACHERS’ LOUNGE 11.20
The IFI is supported by The Arts Council