David R. Walker

Christy

Director: Brendan Canty

Cast: Danny Power, Diamuid Noyes, Emma Willis

Running Time: 1 hour 34 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Film Festival: European Film Festival

Language: English

Irish director Brendan Canty’s directorial debut feature film Christy is a gritty, realist film about brotherly love or lack thereof as it follows the coming of age story of foster kid Christy, a 17 year old who gets kicked out of foster care and rescued by his older brother Shane wonderfully played by Diamuid Noyes.

Set in contemporary Cork, the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland, Christy played by Danny Power is a typically non-communicative boy trying to find his feet in a hostile world. His older brother resents having to look after him while also dealing with a new wife and young baby girl.

Christy helps Shane in his painting business but these characters are grappling on the fringe of success not quite making it. Christy desperately tries to escape his brother’s commanding shadow and finds his dodgy cousins, while hanging out with a group foul mouthed Cork youngsters.

Shane is trying to get his younger brother back into foster care for the remainder of his time under age, but his 18^th birthday is fast approaching.

Christy well played by newcomer Danny Power finds a talent for being a really good barber, a trait he inherited from his deceased mother who perished from a drug overdose. The salt of the earth young lad gets a job helping a local hairdresser with cutting all the gents’ hair.

What director Brendan Canty and screenwriter Alan O’Gorman do correctly is capture the atmosphere of working class Cork as he navigates a feel good coming of age story about a young man who is tempted to go down the wrong path with his conniving cousins but instead gets saved by common sense and a desire to earn a decent living.

While Alan O’Gorman did need to write more of a backstory surrounding these characters, he does manage to capture the inherit anger and resentment felt between the two brothers, Shane and Christy with the older feeling the responsibility for the younger, while the latter is tempted to rebel but has to find his own independence in order to survive.

There is no explicit conflict in Christy, but the temptation and anger is hinted at, it does make for an interesting coming of age story if viewers can look past the swearing. While this Irish drama does thematically hint at such issues as drug abuse, youth unemployment and foster care, the film chooses to dwell on the overwhelming power of brotherly love and inherent protection, rather than drove home social issues.

Christy gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and is recommended viewing as a gritty street style coming of age story in which fraternity triumphs over strife. Worth seeing.

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