Director: Brendan Canty

Stars: Daniel Power, Diarmuid Noyes, Emma Willis, Helen Behan, Jamie Forde

A troubled Irish boy on the cusp of adulthood makes a new start in this touching and amusing Cork-set Irish drama. Power is the titular boy, a brooding, short-tempered seventeen-year-old recently ejected from his latest foster home. The authorities have trouble placing someone of his age in a new one, leaving Christy in limbo until his eighteenth birthday. His estranged older brother Shane (Noyes), who also grew up in care and is now a painter-decorator living with his wife Stacey (Willis) and their infant daughter, reluctantly agrees to let him stay, thanks mainly to Stacey’s persuasion. There is little communication, initially, between Shane, who prides himself on being on the straight and narrow, and the troubled Christy, despite Stacey’s attempts to broker a peace. It is with the local shell suit clad kids, chiefly the cheeky and infectiously charismatic wheelchair using boy ‘Robot’ (Forde) that Christy finally emerges from his protective shell. Later he gets a job as a barber thanks to Pauline (Behan), a friend of Christy’s late mother. Video director Canty’s feature debut skilfully combines social realism and feelgood drama to disarming and moving effect, aided by a spirited young cast. Christy’s journey to normality may feel a little too smooth and predestined for some, but there is subtlety and texture here, particularly in Noyes’ depiction of Shane, a character whose responsible demeanour belies trauma and regret. The end title sequence is a hoot.

David Willoughby

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