Just what I expected

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Irish screenwriter and director Kirsten Sheridan's feature film debut which was written by Irish playwright Enda Walsh after his play "Disco Pigs" from 1996 which starred Cillian Murphy and Irish actress Eileen Walsh, was screened at the 37th Chicago International Film Festival in 2001 and is an Irish production which was shot on location in Dublin, Cork and Wicklow in Ireland and produced by Irish producer Ed Guiney. It tells the story about a 16-year-old student named Darren aka Pig who lives with his mother and younger sister in a terraced house in Cork, Ireland and his same aged childhood friend and sweetheart Sinead aka Runt who lives next door to him with her parents. Darren and Sinead has created their own language and an imaginary world where they are king and queen. Instigated by Darren, they rule Cork as they please, but their teachers have picked up on the development of their relationship and when Sinead is sent to a special residential school called the Allen center in Donegal, they are separated for the first time in their lives.Finely and acutely directed by Irish filmmaker Kirsten Sheridan, this somewhat surreal fictional tale which is narrated by the female protagonist and mostly from her and the male protagonist's point of view, draws a dense and singular portrayal of an obsessive, intense and unrestrained relationship between a boy and girl who's world is shattered when one of them has to leave their home-place. While notable for its colorful and atmospheric milieu depictions, fine production design by production designer Zoë Macleod, cinematography by Chilean cinematographer Igor Jadue-Lillo and Irish cinematographer Peter Robertson, costume design by Irish costume designer Lorna Marie Mugan and use of colors, this character-driven, dialog-driven and diverse independent film from the early 2000s contains a great score by Irish singer, songwriter and composer Gavin Friday and Irish musician and composer Maurice Seezer.This rhythmic, romantic, violent, riveting and at times darkly humorous psychological drama, which is mainly set against the backdrop of the coastal city of Cork in Ireland, about an otherworldly and unfulfilled romance between two rebellious Irish students who are seventeen days away from their 17th birthday, is impelled and reinforced by its fragmented narrative structure, subtle character development, intertwined studies of character, quick-witted dialog and the versatile and remarkable acting performances by Irish actor Cillian Murphy and Irish actress Elaine Cassidy. An unsentimental love-story and a visceral, lyrical and consistently involving character piece.

BEWARE...SPOILER! After a very long period in which I have't been well enough to watch and get absorbed into good art films, I am feeling better and having a very fun summer. I've only recently discovered the amazing beauty and talent that is Cillian Murphy, and am devouring his films as fast as I can get my hands on them.DISCO PIGS is a film that is as beautiful, tender, ardent and violent as the love that seems to surge between Pig and Runt (Murphy and Elaine Cassidy). Both of them give captivating performances. I must also add that the ethereal music score by Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer is intriguing and perfectly suited to the tone of this film.Born on the same day in the same Irish town, Pig and Runt are next door neighbors and grow up together as best friends. Their intense friendship reminds me of the one between Pauline and Juliet in HEAVENLY CREATURES. Like those two girls, Pig and Runt have created a fantasy world that they prefer to the boring, imperfect everyday world. They believe only in each other, and they are the willing outcasts, at their school, and everywhere else. They have a penchant for stealing liquor, bullying the boy who works in the liquor store and playing rather cruel pranks on any guy Runt dances with at clubs. The dean of the school is worried about this bizarre relationship, as are Runt's parents, and it is decided that Runt would benefit greatly if she were separated from Pig and sent to a trade school away from home. I found it sad that the adults seemed to care about Runt's future while they regarded Pig as a "lost cause". Both of these children should have been encouraged to develop properly many years before this.Everything changes the moment Runt shows Pig a new outfit she has made. They are fast approaching their seventeenth birthday, and neither of them are prepared when Pig suddenly sees Runt through a new set of eyes. Their perfect world is about to be shattered. When Pig impulsively kisses Runt, she is frightened and unsure of it, which hurts him deeply. The very next day, she is sent away, not even given an opportunity to say goodbye to her best friend. Though it's supremely hard at first, Runt starts to adapt to life without Pig in her very center. She begins to make new friends and find new interests.In contrast, Pig is miserable and on the verge of a psychotic break. Unable to interact with anyone aside from Runt, he is completely inconsolable, obsessed with the idea of waiting in his room until he can be reunited with the only friend, the only girl, the only anything, in his life. After a few days' search, Pig finds Runt and gets her out of the trade school and brings her home, hoping to resume their life as it was before she was sent away. But the damage has been done. The forced separation has caused a permanent and terrible change inside of Pig. And though she still loves Pig dearly, Runt has been exposed to new things. She's not the same person either, and Pig's pranks have become even more violent, and she is repulsed rather than right there with him. Pig comes to the unbearable realization that he is losing Runt in spite of his efforts to hold onto her, and ends up doing something unthinkable. Knowing that things are irreversibly changed between them, and knowing that his life is impossible without Runt, Pig decides to set his best friend free.In the end, it's true that Runt does love Pig as much as he loves her, but after all that has happened, there is no possibility. It's a very sexy, haunting and tragic story. I loved it!

Where do I begin? Disco Pigs is very typical to many Irish films-especially art films-meaning it is raw. I thought this movie was the most amazing Film I have ever seen in my life- Casting wise-Cillian Murphy is my most favourite actor and for very good reason, Pig is not an easy character to become because he is obsessive, dangerous, and still has the innocence of a child-the language and world Pig and Runt invent is poetic with twisted little games that they invent- You could think of this movie being "a more twisted version of romeo and juliet"- so these two soul mates were born only minuets apart, ignoring the world around them they vowed to always keep things the way they were, only them two, Sinead and Darren, Runt and Pig, King and Queen. Them staying in this world only made for them two-all changed days before their 17th birthday-Pig's eyes are being opened on seeing Runt in more of a romantic way-but his obsessiveness gets the best of him-ending in the most heartbreaking sacrifices i have ever seen.

There's a large psychiatric literature on the "twinning effect," which is often a beautiful thing, but in its pathologic manifestation shows up as what's called "symbiotic psychosis." In plain language, although not biological twins, the two main characters here grew up so closely intertwined that their private world disallowed the intrusion of mundane reality. "Private language" is often a characteristic of this clinical syndrome, and in the movie the heavy Cork dialect accentuated (at least for non-Irish) the barrier between the characters and the viewer. Does anyone remember Melanie's song, "We were so close, there was no room/ We bled inside each other's wounds"? Quite apropos. Also, I felt reflections of "David & Lisa," but updated and sort of run in reverse. As with much Irish literature, one has to be prepared for a view of humanity that never crawls out from under Original Sin, but nevertheless this is a serious work, very much worth watching, and deserved a better title.