Seeing The World Through "My Left Foot"

JOE'S SUMUP: Sincere, powerful, delightful


(1989) Step into your imagination for a moment and think of what it would take to go one day, accomplishing all the mundane and important things of life, using only one appendage, and nothing else.  And it can't be your right hand -- has to be your left foot.  Take a think on that for a moment.


My wife and I recently watched "There Will Be Blood", chiefly to experience once again the matchless performances of Daniel Day-Lewis (same reason as everyone else, right?).  We both came away rather bewildered by the sad strange experience, and Melissa in particular didn't like it at all, so much so that she said she didn't want to see another DDL performance, not wanting to be reminded of Crazy Mr. Plainview.

I recently got around to watching the Oscar-winning "My Left Foot".  Haven't shown it to Melissa yet, but last week I told her with a smile, Honey I think I found a performance to clear Mr. Lewis' slate for ya.  We'll see how she responds, but I think I can say, for the general public, you'll get your money's worth with this surprising work of art (on Netflix Instant, has been for some time).

Every once in a while a screenplay is concocted with great potential, yet for successful fruition everything depends on the casting of one actor or actress equal to its formidable tasks.  I don't know whether the screenplay based on the life of Christy Brown was written with DDL in mind, but it should've been.  He didn't take home his first Oscar for his performance for nothing.


Mr. Christy Brown was born in the 30s, inflicted with cerebral palsy at a time when only tentative medical research had been done on the defect, let alone available to the working class in middle Ireland.  In consequence, everyone thought he was mentally retarded to the point that he was another mindless vegetable.  That is, until his family witnessed him pick up a piece of chalk with the toes of his left foot at the age of 9, and write "mother" on the wooden floor of their little home.  His father, a gruff hardworking man with four other children, is shocked and ecstatic, as are all of his siblings.  Only his mother watches, teary-eyed and perfectly placid, because she alone always believed he could.  Christy goes on in his life, determined to show the world how unfair it would be to think any less of him for his defect.

One of the greatest strengths of the film was how entirely non-sugarcoated it was.  Don't mistake me, I love a good feel-good as well as the next sentimental fool, but Hollywood loves taking a great story, true or fictional, and drizzling it down into honey and syrup to the point that we're sticky with disinterest in the protagonist.  Too many heroes and heroines are also far too deified, until they are so great they're no longer human.  The director Jim Sheridan made the brilliant move of doing just the opposite, portraying Christy just as he was, first as a regular young boy (yet with a head tough enough to block even the fastest coming football!), then later as a man with all the regular passions, including a big one for woman and alcohol, and a rather short fuse.  In not hiding those flaws, the filmmakers allowed me a personal acquaintance with a truly remarkable man who went on to do things no persons with cerebral palsy had ever done before, to our knowledge.

Props go too to all the cast, especially Brenda Fricker who also took home an Oscar, for Best Supporting Actress.  The Oscars aren't the bottom line, but when a film wins two acting Awards, is nominated for Best Picture, Best Screenplay (based on the novel by its own Christy Brown, believe it or not), and Best Director, I generally suspect I'll walk away glad I saw it.  I'll recommend this one over P.T. Anderson's highly acclaimed oil epic any day.  Running time: 103 min.