The Butcher Boy

Neil Jordan directed this adaptation of Patrick McCabe's novel about a boy's struggles with violence and mental illness. Francie Brady (Eamonn Owens) is a young boy growing up in Dublin in the early 1960s, where his life is dominated by his active imagination and his best friend Joe (Alan Boyle). ...more

Recalling Stanley Kubrick's powerful 1973 film A Clockwork Orange in its dissection of madness and society's desire to cure it, this hallucinatory, blackly comic feature by the always-provocative Neil Jordan manages to incorporate a variety of mood shifts and subtle commentary in one fully-realized piece of work. Its young star, the gifted Eamonn Owens, gives a finely-etched portrayal of young derangement (which recalls Malcolm McDowell in the aforementioned Kubrick film), and Jordan's signature ...more