EIFF 2025: Christy
Brendan Canty’s Christy avoids the grim cliches of social realist cinema to tell a compelling coming-of-age story filled with humanity and wisecracks
We first meet Christy (Danny Power) as his foster family is kicking him out. The bruises on his knuckles give us some idea why. So he goes to live with his brother, Shane (Diarmuid Noyes), and Shane’s partner, Stacy (Emma Willis), in a council housing estate in Knocknaheeny.
Brendan Canty’s film could easily be another bleak kitchen-sink drama about the grim realities of working-class life. The world it brings us is grey, run-down and uninspiring, an easy place for a person to stagnate. But it’s also full of vibrant personalities, and people who dearly love being wrapped up in each other’s lives. A real community, albeit an imperfect one.
They’re a funny lot too. Knocknaheeny is rife with wisecrackers, right down to the ten-year-old kids who banter like middle-aged men. As if the lines were passed down to them in their mother’s milk, or maybe in those endless cups of tea.
Power plays Christy beautifully and believably. He wears a permanently glazed-over expression at first, but it’s clear that this affectation, and his quick temper, are just overactive defence mechanisms. It’s a joy to watch them slip away, revealing the person underneath.
There are a few stray moments where Christy is a touch heavy-handed – like the Vaseline-lensed flashbacks of Christy’s mother. But, in a way, this just highlights how successful the rest of the film is – it doesn’t need these crutches because the performances and the story stand up so strongly on their own.
Christy had its UK premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival; released in the UK on 5 Sep by Altitude; certificate 15