✯✯✯✯ 1/2
So today is my 21st birthday, and yesterday, to celebrate, my sister said she would watch any film with me under one condition: It had to be in English. I scoured my Netflix queue until I found this film, which I'd been meaning to see for quite awhile, if only because of the subject's physical condition.
I myself have cerebral palsy, although it isn't nearly to the dramatic extremes that Christy Brown had. Luckily my own impairment was limited to my right side, and with good therapy, some usage of my right hand was restored, although I still awkwardly flail it about from time to time. I can't say I feel all of the pain Christy had to endure in his physically troubled life, but I can certainly understand partially how he would have felt. I can't imagine the difficulty of trying to speak when your brain feels blocked up almost all your life (although I did briefly experience that a few months ago after a near-death experience). Trying to get the words out and not being able to convey what I wanted was not only frustratingly upsetting for those around me, but also incredibly difficult on my own. The escalating frustrations that people would express trying to understand me was quite upsetting, and I could never imagine trying to deal with that all my life.
Cerebral palsy is probably one of the most under-noticed (but not necessarily the definitively most under-noticed) physical disability out there. If you were to see me in real life, you wouldn't even know I had cerebral palsy unless I told you or was limping. It's a subversive affliction that doesn't outwardly affect me, but it does affect my general ability to play a majority of sports and partake in many physical activities. Playing volleyball or whiffleball at family parties is still one of the most frustrating experiences- I can barely manage to walk towards a ball coming in my general direction. Even as a kid I failed at tee-ball. I was essentially alienated by my classmates for a sore lack of sports interests, especially since my high school's main driving force was basketball. Sure, I attended countless games, but I didn't really nurture any internal love for sports. I only went to sports parties for the food, the family, and the commercials. Cerebral palsy, although mild, has not only affected me physically, but also mentally and socially.
My Left Foot is an incredible and spot-on representation of all of those frustrations that people unfairly put on the disabled sometimes. When people get upset at another person's disability, it shows that they have a complete lack of awareness for the other person's feelings. No matter how stalwart I may have seemed when people mocked my disability in school, it always chipped a little off of my self consciousness, slowly but surely. I can only imagine how broken Christy must have felt at times, especially given the severity of his problems. Fortunately, he found an incredible artistic talent, and that talent was conveyed through his only mobile body part: his left foot. Through this single appendage, Christy Brown created countless works of art that were praised and cherished in their time, and he is stil renowned among artists today. But what makes his talent so incredible isn't the product so much as the disability he overcame. He worked through the struggles and the paralysis to create joyous new and beautiful works of art, and it really is a surprise how beautiful his Impressionist artwork is.
My Left Foot may be a bit tweaked and dramatized for Hollywood standards, but the story at its core is nothing short of incredible, and downright inspirational. Christy Brown's amazing story and his struggles are brilliantly and vibrantly placed on screen through an Oscar winning performance by Daniel Day Lewis. Lewis himself plays the Irish painter so perfectly, and doesn't make light of Brown's physical and vocal impairments. The film ensures that the audience knows that this illness is definitely no joke- it can severely affect people's lives, in one way or another. Seeing Lewis so accurately and convincingly portray that disability in this film warmed the cockles of my heart, and helped me connect with him and his character so well. My Left Foot is an incredible biographical achievement, and certainly should not be missed out by anyone.