Not better, but different from their originals, Don Quijote and Tom Jones have already been done, the former several times and, oddly, best by Russians Kozintsev and also Nereyev/Helpmann in Petipa’s ballet. Against expectation, Neil Jordan flirts with pulling off a similar feat in his and Patrick McCabe’s adaptation of the latter’s 1992 novel, Breakfast on Pluto, their first such partnership since The Butcher Boy eight years ago.

Like the screen versions of Cervantes and Fielding, this new entry ties together, as on a bead necklace, varied misadventures connected one to another by protagonist Patrick Braden (Cillian Murphy), who is, in effect, the string -- self-recreated as “Kitten.” The film is pumped by an effective cast -- frequent Jordan actor Stephen Rea is touching in a brief bit as Bertie the Magician -- and, initially off-putting in mannerism, Murphy's Kitten ropes the viewer in over the long, arduous haul.

The flaw that sinks the whole, however, is that adjective, “long,” plus “diffuse.” Centerpiece at the Lincoln Center New York Film Festival prior to theatrical release November 16, it weighs in at a fairly modern standard two-and-a-quarter hours. But because the thread that would sew together its three dozen eighteenth-centuryishly titled chapter/episodes is no more than the presence-participation of the hero, just about anything can be -- and is -- grist to be included.

Embraced by a pre-9/11 U.S., The Crying Game raised grumbles in a bomb-weary U.K. for its mix of terrorism and transvestitism, carnivals and thrills, desire, betrayal, guilt and redemption. A serio-comic “fairy tale . . . created out of [Patrick’s] own harsh life,” this new one goes from abandoned babies to abandoned abortions to two new births; gentle whacked- and spaced-out bikers to squeamish or ruthless IRA soldiers; subtitled robin redbreast chatter to a wildly eclectic ‘70s score; satirized traveling rockers to paired bad/good cops and bombings in churches, discos and streets; a kiddie theme park to five hookers’ legal peepshow cooperative, women with men’s names to the centrally sought Phantom Lady (Quijote’s “lady of his thoughts”) who turns out most disappointingly mundane. And more . . .

A quick opening frame has sexy Kitten bantering with ogling construction workers and pushing a pram while telling the tale to its infant occupant. Like that of foundling Tom Jones, who goes on the road to roots, meaning, acceptance and love, this one recounts a modern odyssey for the same. In a kind of preface that could, and should, have been cut a lot, Mitzi Gaynor lookalike, bubble-curled Eily Bergin (Eva Birthistle) is the prettiest lassie in Tyreelin, near Northern Ireland’s troubled border with the Republic. The newborn she leaves alongside milk bottles on a presbytery doorstep before leaving herself for London, is taken in by kindly Father Bernard (Liam Neeson) and farmed out to foster care, from which harsh home years later the androgynous glam-spangled teen Patrick will leave as “Kitten.”

To London he will go, looking for his mother that a Down’s syndrome companion’s (Seamus Reilly) father (Paraic Breathnach) has identified for him. Bidding goodbye to the few pals who sympathize and, amidst political and romantic turmoil, will turn up later -- hardly anyone useable fails to reappear -- holy fool Kitten meets, instead, insane adventures on the way to, and in, “the biggest city in the world [which] swallowed my mother up.”

Enough is enough, too much too much, and, piled one atop another with antic abandon and speed, the episodes defy description. About two-thirds in, and in spite of all, optimistic Kitten teeters on winning us over; but the story is not over, not by a long shot. For example, repentant good Bernard returns, and so does Charlie (Ruth Negga), and an entirely new tack unfolds, endlessly. As well he might by this time, talented Neeson sleepwalks, others mumble unintelligibly with backs to the camera, the robins return with spring, and, in flesh or dream, so does nearly everyone else. Who but Oscar Wilde could at long last sum it up: “I love talking about nothing.” 

(Released by Sony Pictures Classics and rated "R" for sexuality, language, some violence and drug use. Screens on October 1 and 2 at the 2005 New York Film Festival.)