If there was ever a film that proves the value of directors making music videos as an avenue into the industry and as a way to polish their craft, it is CHRISTY, the feature film debut from Brendan Canty. The Irish filmmaker’s black and white video for Hozier’s track “Take Me To Church” went viral in 2013, the urban, working-class setting of the video turning out to portend what would become nigh-on a signature for Canty’s future endeavours. These include the short films FOR YOU and CHRISTY, the latter of which has been adapted into a feature of the same name for Canty’s debut.
Both take place on council estates, where characters tackle the real-world problems thrust upon them. The stakes within Canty’s narratives are simple but personal. In FOR YOU, it is a young girl needing money from an alcoholic mother to get her hair done before prom; in the original CHRISTY short, it is a teenager attending a job interview with his brother’s botch-job of a CV. For the feature-length CHRISTY, Canty expands on the quotidian conflicts that exist under the grey Irish gloom of his short films and reconditions the problems of the proletariat into something joyous, even celebratory.
When we first meet the 17-year-old Christy (Danny Power, reprising his role from the short film), he has been forcibly removed from his foster home after a violent altercation with his foster brother. Christy, whose volatile temper has seen his expulsion from several different foster homes, is only a few weeks from turning 18 years old and ageing out of foster care. Until then, he is staying in Cork with his estranged half-brother, Shane (Diarmuid Noyes, also reprising). Shane is an example of a care system survivor, having become self-sufficient after starting his own decorating business and becoming a father. While Shane has become a prominent example of the stereotypical nuclear family unit with his newborn baby and partner Stacey (Emma Willis), he remains haunted by his experiences in foster care, and it doesn’t take much to spark his temper.
“Canty expands on the quotidian conflicts that exist under the grey Irish gloom of his short films and reconditions the problems of the proletariat into something joyous, even celebratory.”
But even with the stresses of his life, Shane magnanimously rescues Christy from re-entering the care system he was once part of. The siblings, who share a deceased mother, have mutual trauma which they each have yet to process, either as individuals or collectively. The brothers are not unlike similar poles on a magnet; they repel each other, ironically, too similar to come together as one. The tumultuous Christy, now with the safety and comfort of a new community, begins to recognise that he has a chance to succeed in life as a barber if he learns self-control and humility. While Shane – whose expectations of someone in social care are blinkered, must recognise that Christy has as much chance to become a rare success story as he did, should the teenager be given adequate support.
On the surface, the coming-of-age plotting that makes up CHRISTY is highly familiar. The plot revolves around a stubborn Shane letting go of the past, while Christy tries to assimilate into a society that is happy to take him in if he secedes from his impulsive tendencies. Christy must also reject the advances from perfidious cousin Jammy (Ian Tabone), who attempts to lure him into drug-dealing and criminality. Peer pressure is not a fresh concept to tackle within the genre. Still, CHRISTY manages to avoid feeling stale through the emotionally fraught and powerful performances from Power and Noyes, as well as through a colourful supporting cast of young Irish rascals.
The presence of these tweens injects a generous splash of Irish humour and charm into the film. Their prepubescent voices rapping or yelling obscenities during their frivolous escapades are an energetic counterweight to the more downbeat moments. This youthful supporting cast includes love interest Leona (Cara Cullen), wheelchair user Robot (Jamie Forde), and Ferret (Darren Stewart), whose younger sister Sophia (Sophia McNamara) is a sassy addition to the ensemble. Forde and Stewart are returning to the cast from the 2019 short film, with Forde’s Robot providing a similar abundance of levity to the picture as he did in the short film.
“Director of Photography Colm Hogan, who also shot SXSW horror darling ODDITY, takes the mundane streets of Cork and brings them alive, the camera acting as a fluid participant in maintaining the film’s witty buoyancy.”
These children all emerge from The Kabin Studio, a Cork-based non-profit that provides a channel for the artistic output of its younger community. The studio fostered the creation of The Kabin Crew in 2024, who went uber-viral online with the rap track ‘The Spark’ as CHRISTY was in post-production. Forde, McNamara and Stewart are all members of the Kabin Crew and feature prominently in the end credits as they premiere a new, highly catchy rap track titled ‘That’s How We Do It In Cork’.
Where CHRISTY stumbles is the inclusion of an easily-resectable subplot, in which Christy spends an evening with a homeless girl, Chloe (Alison Oliver). The scenes highlight the softer, empathetic side that Christy likes to hide, but that emotional range is already shown through Power’s performance, where his ill-temper is matched with trembling fingers and a fixation on having his mother’s St Christopher medal in his mouth. The scenes feel superfluous within writer Alan O’Gorman’s script, which otherwise crackles with real spirit. Director of Photography Colm Hogan, who also shot SXSW horror darling ODDITY, takes the mundane streets of Cork and brings them alive, the camera acting as a fluid participant in maintaining the film’s witty buoyancy.
The working-class coming-of-age genre has been one especially prone to descending into self-pitying or melodramatic tones without a strong vision behind it. CHRISTY never fails to feel genuine, the Berlinale 14plus Grand Prix winner covering a rekindling of a fraught brotherhood with a joyous air of authenticity. There is more than a pinch of socio-realist Andrea Arnold in the reels of Canty’s smashing debut. However, it is also the work of a filmmaker blazing his own directorial path with this endearing Irish hip-hop charmer.