The gray suburban fringes of Cork’s Northside region are gradually colored with hope in “Christy,” an old-fashioned coming-of-age heartwarmer with few narrative surprises but a winningly authentic sense of place, people and vernacular. Following a sullen teenage casualty of the Irish social care system as he’s reunited with his similarly damaged half-brother, slowly regaining a feeling of purpose and belonging in the world, Brendan Canty‘s debut feature is satisfyingly expanded from his 2019 short of the same title. In the process, it has become not just a contained domestic drama but a brightly inhabited study of resilient working-class community in a neglected stretch of Ireland’s second-largest city.
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