(1989) The story of Irish author/painter Christy Brown (Daniel Day-Lewis in the role from age 17 forward), in a wheelchair, awaiting his time for a public appearance at a charity event, flirting with his female attendant, Mary Carr (Ruth McCabe), who is reading his autobiography (on which this film was based), unfolds in flashbacks, beginning with his birth in 1932 in Dublin and childhood.

Young Christy (Hugh O'Conor), mistakenly believed to be an imbecile cripple, is one of thirteen surviving children of Paddy (Ray McAnally) and Bridget (Brenda Fricker) Brown's 22 babies. He proves his intelligence by writing "MOTHER" on the floor with a piece of chalk held between the toes of his left foot.

He's pushed about the neighborhood in a wheelbarrow "chariot" until his mother can afford to purchase a real wheelchair for him in his late teens. With his brothers and their mates, Christy plays football as a goalie with a vicious kick.

Hard times come to the Browns after Paddy, whom Christy refers to as "the barbarian," gets laid off from his bricklaying job for hurling a brick at his foreman. Painting a sweetheart card for a local girl, who kissed him during a game of spin-the-bottle but refuses to accept it, begins Christy's devotion to his art.

A clinic for victims of cerebral palsy opens in Dublin, but after a brief stint in the program, Christy refuses to attend further therapy sessions. Instead Dr Eileen Cole (Fiona Shaw) comes to his home, providing him with intense speech training and physical therapy. After reading Shakespeare's Hamlet, practicing the "To be or not to be" soliloquy for articulation, he says of the Dane: "A cripple. Can't act."

Celebrating at an elegant restaurant, after an exhibition of his canvases in an art gallery, with Eileen, Peter (the gallery owner), and others, Christy pours out his love for Eileen only to find out she will be marrying Peter; he makes a terrible scene, raging and over-imbibing alcohol through a straw. His mother says: "A broken body's nothin' to a broken heart."

His family builds Christy a room of his own for a studio. After his father's death, Christy with his brother Benny's help writes his first account of his life, selling it to help with the family's finances. Later alone on an electric typewriter he composes the narrative of his life.

Christy Brown married in 1972 and died in 1981. Also a poet and novelist, he fictionalized My Left Foot into a novel, Down All the Days, which the Irish rock band The Pogues also titled a song in his remembrance.

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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