My Left Foot (DVD)

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When I first approached this film years ago, I remember doing so with more than a little reluctance. After all, I thought, who wanted to watch a movie about a cerebral palsy victim? Boy, was I wrong.

Based on the autobiography of Irish artist and writer Christy Brown, 1989's "My Left Foot" is as honest, vigorous, uplifting, entertaining, and thoroughly enjoyable a film as you'll find, helped in large measure by outstanding performances by Daniel Day-Lewis as Brown and Brenda Fricker as his mother. Day-Lewis deservedly won a Best Actor Oscar that year as did Fricker for Best Supporting Actress. Thanks to them and director Jim Sheridan (who cowrote the screenplay), the movie presents a vigorous portrait of a real-life character whose indomitable spirit helped him overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.

Christy Brown was born with cerebral palsy, a brain disorder that left him paralyzed in every limb and extremity of his body except his left foot. It is amazing what the man accomplished with so little to work with physically. He became a celebrated artist--a painter of pictures--and a writer with his autobiography. Yes, fortunately, there was nothing wrong with his thinking ability, although it took a while for his family to realize this fact and for young Christy to communicate it to them.

But don't think that "My Left Foot" is one of those sentimental, lovably uplifting stories where the unfortunate victim of the malady is all sweetness and light and we cheer for him the whole way. Not on your life. In his book Christy Brown freely admits his faults, and the movie clearly identifies them. The story makes no bones about Brown's feisty disposition, his alcoholism, his fits of temper, his rocky romances, his despair, and his attempted suicide. Still, it is these darker aspects of the man's nature that make him more real, make us believe in him as a human being.

Equally important to the film's success is Daniel Day-Lewis's performance. The actor becomes the character in a way that few actors actually inhabit a screen role. Perhaps it's the chameleonlike makeup of Day-Lewis's movie portrayals that impresses one; he is clearly one of moviedom's finest performers. Yet this performance goes beyond even what we might expect of him. He simply is Christy Brown. In fact, when we see the real Christy Brown in one of the DVD's accompanying featurettes, we may be tempted to say to ourselves, "That's not Christy Brown. I just saw Christy Brown, and this is an impostor."

Others in the cast lend to the story's believability. Certainly, Brenda Fricker as Christy's mother puts in as fine and sensitive a rendering as possible of this long-suffering woman. Fricker conveys an unassailable will; she never encourages Christy to get his hopes up, yet she never gives up on him, either. Ray McAnally plays Christy's father, a hard man to live with, loud and boastful but tender and caring. Interestingly, McAnally's character dies in the film, and McAnally himself died shortly after the film's release. And I must not forget Hugh O'Conor, who plays Christy as a child in a performance worthy of an Oscar nomination as well.

Christy, born in 1932, came from an exceptionally large family, the mother giving birth to twenty-one children, thirteen of whom survived. They all lived together in a small Dublin tenement. The movie is quite brief, 103 minutes, and it rightly focuses on Christy's coming to terms with his handicap and with his family relationships. It almost wholly ignores world-shaking events of the day like the Great Depression and World War II in lieu of Christy's more intimate, personal story. Fair enough. In addition, we see his adventures playing football, stealing much-needed heating coal, and romancing several women.

The first of the women we see in his life (other than family) is his physical therapist, Eileen Cole (Fiona Shaw), the doctor who teaches Christy to speak more clearly and who brings Christy's painting to public notice. But Christy misinterprets Dr. Cole's attention to him, mistaking it for love. He's crushed when she marries another man. Not that an Irishman is said to need a reason to drink, but his resultant despondency leads to his overindulgence in alcohol. The second love of his life is Mary (Ruth McCabe), an attendant with whom he first flirts and later marries.