some bad mistakes were made in directing

I hope you mean they were writing errors rather than directing ones.

Actually, in both cases I think they wanted to depict that Christy's hot-headed nature was a result of growing up with severely physical disabilities. He couldn't shout out loud, so banging his left foot or his head were the only logical outlets for his pent-up anger. It seemed fine to me.

Having watched the film fully for the first time last night - which is to my eternal shame as an Irishman - I'd have to agree somewhat.

Firstly it must be said no one can honestly argue that Daniel Day-Lewis' and Brenda Fricker's performances were anything but fantastic, but Ray McAnally, who played the father, and Hugh O'Connor, who played the young Christy Brown, deserve tremendous credit as well.

Some of the directing/producing choices struck me as strange - the fight sense was a comically caper that seemed to play intentional or unintentional homage to The Quiet Man. This film is undoubtedly not over-wrought but it seemed strange. Without having read the book, much of my opinion on that scene relies on how Christy Brown himself portrayed the fight in his auto-biography.

The music was undoubtedly one of the worst parts of the film, being far too twee and wrongly recalling the soundtracks to 1950's films. Yes, the film itself is mostly set around that period, but in many cases the soundtrack detracts from the emotional intensity of the scenes, not enhances it. Some people will surely disagree with that, but there you go. Perhaps I'll enjoy it more next time I watch it being prepared for it, but as of right now the above stands for me.

The way the film was set up was done to accommodate the 'conclusive' ending that the memoir (which was published in 1954, when Christy was only 22) didn't provide. While it does end the film on a pretty satisfying note, it does gloss over important facts of Christy's life - he may have married Carr, but there has been significant evidence to say that she neglected Brown and may even have physically abused him shortly before his death in 1981 when he choked on his dinner.

Now undoubtedly Brown's story is first and foremost a triumph, not a tragedy, so I understand why creative license was used here but perhaps the film could have ended on a note that was more in keeping with the tone of the film up to that point.

Other problems are the wholesale changing of characters - Doctor Collis was a writer himself who was one of the key figures in helping Christy write his memoir, even proofreading drafts for him. In the film he is turned into an amalgamation (as Doctor Cole) of his wife (also a doctor) and Katriona MaGuire, and while the character that came off very well in the film, on reflection it seems strange they made such a big change when the real life story would have been just as if not more fruitful. I don't think it would have confused people too much to know more than one person helped Christy, especially when the developed characters in the film are particularly sparse as it is.

Ok, I'm sure someone reading this will have got entirely the wrong impression of how I view this film because I honestly love it. I think some of the above rightly meant the film didn't win the Best Picture Oscar, but not just as film done on a shoestring budget (£600,000), or as proud testament to how good Irish film can be, the film succeeds.

As a film - period - it is fantastic.

The bar fight scene was total nonsense. It could have been cut out of Blazing Saddles. And while Daniel Day-Lewis was excellent, the film fell into cliche way too many times.