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From: leeper@mtgzx.att.com (Mark R. Leeper)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews
Subject: REVIEW: MY LEFT FOOT
Summary: r.a.m.r. #00714
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Date: 12 Feb 90 18:01:36 GMT
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				 MY LEFT FOOT
		       A film review by Mark R. Leeper
			Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper

	  Capsule review:  Upbeat but not saccharine tale of
     Christy Brown.  Paralyzed with cerebral palsy so that he has
     control only over one foot, he becomes  an artist and an
     author.  The film perhaps over-emphasizes his romantic life
     over other aspects that could be more interesting, but it is
     a superb performance.  Rating: +2.

     Christy Brown was born with cerebral palsy to a poor Dublin family.
Paralyzed so that he has control only over one foot, he used that foot to
write and paint, distinguishing himself in both until his death in 1981.
This is his story from birth to his late thirties, told as a series of
flashbacks as he thinks about his life one afternoon.  This is not just his
biography, but also a portrait of living conditions for the poor in Dublin
in the 1930s and 1940s.  We see not just his life but also his times.  His
father was a heavy drinker and a bully.  Some of the early scenes of Brown
as a child trapped in this household and in a body he cannot operate have a
nightmarish quality most fictional horror films cannot approach.  We cower
with a terrified Christy when his father goes on drunken rampages.  People
call him an idiot to his face and he has no way to respond or prove them
wrong.  We struggle with Christy the first time he tries to communicate,
scratching on the floor with a piece of chalk between his toes, answering an
arithmetic problem that his father had missed a few minutes before.  Like
many people with communications disabilities, he is assumed to be profoundly
retarded when in fact he has a very quick mind.

     This sort of film could easily have become sentimental inspirational
muck.  In fact, it has more of the feel of Daniel Keyes's FLOWERS FOR
ALGERNON.  As Christy raises himself, his world perspective changes.  At
times he is not very likable and often he is manipulative.  Where the story
falls short of FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON is that it lacks the drama of the fall
or that book's awe at intellectual achievement.  And like the aborted stage
version of FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON, the peak of Christy Brown's achievement is
that he "gets the girl," nothing more profound.  In spite of the film's
apparent emphasis on the importance of Christy's love life, it is one of the
better portraits of the life of the handicapped on film.

     Daniel Day Lewis is good as the adult Christy, as has been noted by
other reviewers.  I have seen little credit given, however, to what I
consider even better performances by Ray McAnally as Christy's swaggering,
ruffian father and especially by Hugh O'Conor as the young Christy.  At age
13, O'Conor turns in the best performance in a well-acted film.  The
screenplay was written by Shane Cunningham and the director, Jim Sheridan.
My rating is a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.

					Mark R. Leeper
					att!mtgzx!leeper
					leeper@mtgzx.att.com