MY LEFT FOOT

Directed by Jim Sheridan

Produced by Noel Pearson

Screenplay by Jim SheridanShane Connaughton

Based on My Left Foot byChristy Brown

Starring

Daniel Day-LewisRay McAnallyBrenda FrickerFiona ShawHugh O'Conor

Music by Elmer Bernstein

Cinematography Jack Conroy

Editing by J. Patrick Duffner

Distributed by Granada Films (UK)Miramax Films

Release date(s) •November 10, 1989 (1989-11-10)

Running time 103 minutes

Country Ireland

Language English

Budget £600,000

Box office $14,743,391

MY LEFT FOOTChristy Brown is a spastic quadriplegic born to a large, poor Irish family. His mother, Mrs Brown, recognizes the intelligence and humanity in the lad everyone else regards as a vegetable. Eventually, Christy matures into a cantankerous writer who uses his only functional limb, his left foot, to write.

Christy Brown was born to a large Dublin family (he had 13 surviving siblings) in 1932. Born with severe athetoid cerebral palsy, Christy was unable to speak or control his limbs. At that time, the only course of action was to institutionalize CP children, but Christy's loving family refused to do so, so he grew up as one of the gang: participating in alley football matches, being dragged around town in his wheelbarrow, and included in family dinners. For years, Christy was unable to speak or communicate, until he discovers that he can write with his left foot, the only limb that he can partially control.

The feature-film debut of writer-director Jim Sheridan, My Left Foot [1989] is one of those films that gave the Oscars its reputation for rewarding stunt acting in sentimental films that touch on disabling conditions (see also Rain Man and Shine). But watch My Left Foot and try to brand Daniel Day Lewis' performance a stunt. Try to convince yourself the story has been sentimentalized. Christy Brown was born with brain damage that resulted in crippling cerebral palsy, but he overcame the torturous betrayal of his body and became a celebrated artist and writer. His brain dysfunction didn't affect his intellect (the screen Brown jokes that he thought of titling his memoir My Left Foot "Remembrances of a Mental Defective"), but rendered his left foot as his only steady appendage. He used it to paint, write, and type; Brown wrote six other books, including the semi-autobiographical novel Down All the Days. Sheridan's film covers the period from Brown's birth in 1932 to an emotional turning point in 1959 (Brown's 1981 choking death goes without mention).

Inspiration is inherent in Brown's story, but Sheridan, co-screenwriter Shane Connaughton, and Lewis refuse to sanctify him. Like James Joyce, this Dubliner is a problem drinker. He's also an ornery, mercurial womanizer, alternately egotistical and self-pitying, fighting what may well be a losing battle for self-control.

And yet, as Sheridan's film illustrates, these behaviours represent the hard-won rights of a marginalized man who has to fight even to participate in society.

Lewis' unimpeachable performance definitively eschews movie-star vanity and embraces the drool and sweat characteristic of a man fighting to rein in his writhing and rolling, and attempting clearly to be heard.

My Left Foot is also the portrait of a poor Irish family. Of 22 children, 13 lived to raise hell in the Brown household, overshadowed by Da (Ray McAnally) and overseen by Ma (Oscar-winning Brenda Fricker).

Sheridan and Connaughton skillfully evoke familial love in all its strange, contradictory forms: reckless play and fierce protectiveness, unexpected outbursts of anger and joy, and the small compensations that keep them together.

Ma's selfless mother represents an ideal, but one we suspect is miraculously true; Fricker's unwavering mother knows her lot and chooses to make the best of it, living proudly through her darling.

Her self-doubting husband loves Christy, too, but with unfocused bluster that knows the up and down sides to paternal pride.

This film, told in flashbacks, tells the story of Christy Brown, a brilliant painter, poet and author, who was born in Dublin, Ireland, 1932, with a body crippled by Cerebral Palsy. Fortunately, he was blessed with a left foot, free of the disorder, a brilliant, creative mind, caring parents and a soon to be large, loving Irish family as time passes. This film was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.

In the 30's and 40's, ignorance and lack of medical know-how ruled the day when it came to Cerebral Palsy patients. It was thought that they were mentally incompetent as well.

This inspirational screenplay was written by Shane Connaughton and Jim Sheridan, based on the auto-biographical book by Christy Brown himself, who died in 1981. This well-done script catches the spirit of Christy's inspiring life story, which has given many hope that their dreams can come true, despite physical handicaps and challenges. One can see why it earned an Academy award nomination. The multi-talented Jim Sheridan also did the superb direction, which earned him an Academy award nomination. Jim Sheridan has a Dublin-based production company that has made several successful movies, such as "In the Name of the Father." The marvellous cast is made up of mostly unknown, but very talented Irish actors, who do a terrific job telling this Irish inspirational story through both their ensemble work and individual efforts.

Hugh O'Conor touchingly establishes Brown's bodily imprisonment, a parody of his own humanity. Lewis reclaims the role when Christy turns 17.

Daniel Day-Lewis won a much-deserved Oscar for his wily, passionate performance as Irish artist and writer Christy Brown, whose cerebral palsy kept him confined to a wheelchair.

Day Lewis' re-creation of writer/painter Christy Brown's condition is so precise, so detailed and so matter-of-fact that it transcends the carping about casting an actor without cerebral palsy. He couldn't have done it better. More to the point, he does it with so little show that the character of Christy - cussed, frustrated, indulged, immature - comes through powerfully.