Liam Movie Review

Stuttering Liam (Anthony Borrows) has problems like you wouldn't believe. For starters, he lives in Liverpool during the Depression. He's also pummelled with Catholic doctrine at school. Dad's out of work. Sis has to work as a maid for a wealthy Jewish family. And of course, there's the stutter.

Stephen Frears (High Fidelity) directs this powerful and moving work about a small facet of the past, and it's interesting to see him work without his trademark, wry humor as found in similar working-class-in-the-UK productions like The Van and The Snapper. Ian Hart is apt as the down-and-out father who gets sucked into anti-Jewish Fascism (thus endangering poor sis's breadwinning), and Borrows is a put-upon and precocious (yet not disgustingly so) kid in the tradition of Angela's Ashes.

I felt a little bit cheated by the ending, which reaches a natural conclusion but leaves too many loose threads. Still, Frears has put enough heart into the movie to overcome its limitations.

Please sir, may I have some more?