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LIAM Send This Review to a Friend
Any film by Stephen Frears demands special attention and his "Liam," set in Liverpool in the 1930s, is an involving story of working class deprivation, the hatreds that flourish in hard times and the tragedies that can stem from hate. But the film has its problems as well as its strengths.
Young Anthony Borrows is excellent and sympathetic as Liam, a boy through whose eyes the story is largely focused. Liam stutters and is being raised with the thundering hell-awaits-sinners indoctrination he gets from his teacher and priest. Ian Hart is especially effective as Liam's embittered Dad, who is unemployed when the shipyard where he works is closed and is vulnerable to the fascistic rhetoric that lures him to hate Jews and Irish. Liam's struggling mother is played convincingly by Claire Hackett.
Frears, working from a screenplay by Jimmy McGovern, concentrates on creating a realistic atmosphere in depicting the times and the lot of working class families. But there's another angle. Liam's sister Teresa (Megan Burns) goes to work for a Jewish family, shown to be well-heeled and controlling. Here I think Frears is treading dangerously. On the one hand, it is clear from the course of events that he is warning against the sort of fascist ideology that leads to anti-Semitism. But the Jewish family is shown most unsympathetically, with the wife carrying on an affair and involving Liam's sister in her efforts at cover-up. The portrait amounts to a stereotype that partly undercuts the film's larger view.
Still, "Liam" is absorbing on many counts and it builds to a strong if melodramatic ending that underscores where prejudice and violence can lead, sometimes even rebounding against the family of a participant. A Lion's Gate Films release.
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