The Butcher Boy Movie Review

The Butcher Boy (1997)

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Written by: Pat McCabe (novel), Neil Jordan and Pat McCabe (screenplay)
Directed by: Neil Jordan
Starring: Stephen Rea, Fiona Shaw, Eamonn Owens
Rated: R
Watch the trailer

Plot
The antisocial son of an alcoholic father and a bipolar mother grows up in 1960s Ireland.

Verdict
It's nostalgia that descends into horror. This is a character study on a kid raised by pop culture that becomes increasingly isolated which causes him to act out. He doesn't know the underlying psychology, he just feels a craving for attention. That desire becomes overwhelming, causing him to reach extremes to fulfill that need as every connection he has dissipates. A sad story turns absolutely horrifying. It's a good film, but so heartbreaking. This is a kid that falls between the cracks with disastrous consequences.
It depends.

Review
Francie (Eamonn Owens) causes trouble during the '60s in Ireland. His parents neglect him and he's raised on television and lost in fantasy and fun. He acts out likely just for attention, focusing on bullying the Nugent family, a classmate and his mother. Francie's mother's death only makes things worse for him as his bullying becomes more intense. Nugent relatives attempt to teach Francie a lesson by dunking him in the river, their attacks only subsiding when Francie fakes having drowned. It's absolutely wild. No wonder this kid's first instinct is violence. All that lesson does is make Francie a terror.

Eamonn Owens plays Francie Brady

This is a kid that doesn't know how to deal with emotions, acting out due to his mother's death and his father's alcoholism. It's nature versus nurture. With no one to nurture him and mold him, Francie enacts the violence and fear he sees in pop culture. His imagination helps him deal with the pain that he can't even verbalize. A particularly heinous and disgusting act lands him at a boarding school. Isolation was the issue, and this only makes it worse. I'm not clear if he realizes the abuse he's suffering at the boarding school, his imagination covers it, or he just represses it. He has to know on some level it isn't right, though what we see isn't as overt as it could be.

When Francie returns home, his friend Joe has moved on. Francie is completely alone, and eventually ends up in an asylum. Feeling lost with everyone gone, this lonely, disturbed kid just wants someone, anyone. He's abandoned. What has always garnered him attention is acting out. I wasn't prepared for the conclusion. It's disturbing and shocking. An emotionally stunted kid unaware of the root of his problem just wants to be noticed.

This refrains from making Francie an out and out villain. He's never spiteful to his friend Joe, and he isn't malicious to his parents. He just wants someone to notice him, though he does focus all of his frustrations onto the Nugent family. Unable to voice his frustrations, he lashes out at this family that subconsciously sets him off. His situation doesn't excuse what he does to that family. While this type of situation doesn't make a monster of everyone, it does create a criminal out of Francie.