The very thought of a film about an Irish-Catholic family struggling to make ends meet in pre-WWII Liverpool is enough to make some people lapse into an Angela's Ashes-induced coma.  Leave it to director Stephen Frears to breathe a bit of much-needed life into the gloomy, dreary genre of early-20th-century films about dirt-poor drinking-class UK families living in their own filth.

While he's probably best known by the U.S. masses for directing John Cusack in High Fidelity and The Grifters, or perhaps for his frocky flicks like Dangerous Liaisons and Mary Reilly, Frears spent a big chunk of the '90s making the two oft overlooked sequels in Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy (the first was Alan Parker's The Commitments).  Working with the Rabbittes in The Snapper and The Van must have honed Frears' skills in directing films about close-knit families – something that shows with his latest project, Liam.

The winner of two awards at last year's Venice Film Festival, Liam begins on New Year's Eve, where a happy mum (Claire Hackett) and dad (Ian Hart, Aberdeen) celebrate at a local pub while their three kids watch them.  They're a cheery lot, with Dad bringing home the bacon after hours of grueling labor at the local shipyard.  But when the Depression costs him his job, the man slips into one deep funk.  It doesn't help that his two oldest children have to get jobs to pay the bills.  Con (David Hart) follows in his father's blue-collar footsteps, while Teresa (Megan Burns) cleans houses after school.  Even though Dad has consistently given to the church throughout the years, he refuses their handouts in this time of need.

Most of the film is told through the eyes of Liam (Anthony Borrows), a stuttering seven-year-old who has had the fear of God beaten into him by a dominating Catholic-school priest (Russell Dixon).  The film's humor comes via Liam's complete fear of religion and the consequences of committing the tiniest sin.  Borrows, like most of the actors in the film (other than Hart), has no acting experience, but does a remarkable job as his character watches his family life disintegrate.  The finale is unbelievably tragic.

Liam was written by Jimmy McGovern, a working-class Brit who penned the controversial Priest as well as the extremely dark television series Cracker (both the U.S. and British versions).  The film is a bit of an emotional biography for McGovern (as Frears explained after the world premiere of the film at the Toronto International Film Festival), and it's not at all a biopic about the lead singer of Oasis, you silly sod.

1:30 –

but contains nudity and adult language