My Left Foot.

My Left Foot * My Left Foot is a good, strong, unsentimental portrayal of Christy Brown, the Irish lad afflicted with cerebral palsy who grew up to be an acclaimed writer and painter--with his left foot, the only part over which his brain had control--and the husband of Mary Carr, a nurse supererogatorily assigned to watch over him. One of 13 surviving children in an improverished Dublin family, Christy had a particularly staunch and supportive mother and an enlightened doctor, Eileen Cole, who helped him enormously, but set him back when she couldn't reciprocate his romantic feelings.

The story--as written by Jim Sheridan and Shane Connaughton, and directed by Sheridan--is one of those near-documentary treatments of stubborn courage triumphing over immense obstacles; it is told with grim honesty and raffish humor. Some reviewers have objected that it does not address the crippling role the Catholic Church plays (in their view) in Irish life, forcing a poor mother to keep giving birth to endless children, who then have to grow up in increasing poverty unless they die in infancy. That may be true, but it does not belong in this film; more troubling, I think, is the film's failure to note that Christy Brown choked to death on his Christmas dinner in 1981, at age 49. But the filmmakers are clearly more concerned with an inspirational happy ending than with the somewhat Pyrrhic victory that was the truth.

Still, the film is a considerable achievement, notably for Daniel Day Lewis. The actor immersed himself in the leading part both through previous study and by living in a wheelchair throughout the shooting; the result is a performance of awesome authenticity leavened by the roguish, iconoclastic wit Day Lewis conveys so well. He is backed up here by an extraordinary supporting cast, all of whom are fine, and some of whom--the late Ray McAnnally as the bitter father, Brenda Fricker as the indomitable mother, and hugh O'Connor as the boy Christy--are outstanding. It is the kind of film that can help you not give up on the human race; its not being fiction adds the final fillip to a story with plenty of punch.