30 Second Bottom Line: Liam is a young boy living with his parents, older brother, and sister in a poor working class neighborhood of Liverpool in the 1930s. Dad works in the factory, Mam works hard making ends meet and making sure she puts something aside for the parish priest.
Story Line: These gifts to the church are much resented by Dad and the family can ill afford it. Still, they manage to have a song and a laugh with their pint on a Saturday night at the pub. What sets this film apart from quite a few others with the same theme in recent years is the telling mostly from point of view of seven year old Liam (Anthony Barrows). He is preparing to make his first confession and Holy Communion in the opulent local Catholic Church.
The church building itself is seen in sharp contrast to the simple, meager way in which the locals live. Liam tries to make sense of all the confusing, conflicting things he sees and hears going on at home, in school and in the neighborhood. With childish simplicity, he takes very literally the threats and guilt the schoolteacher and the priest rain down on the class of boys as they are indoctrinated on the consequences of sin. When he accidentally opens the door on his nude mother emerging from the bath, he fears for his immortal soul.
There are many such moments of doubt and uncertainty for Liam and he meets them dutifully, notwithstanding a stammer in his voice, in his eagerness to be good. After his father loses his job due to a factory closure, his teenage sister Teresa finds employment with a wealthy Jewish family as a domestic. Resentment simmers in the neighborhood as "outsiders" from Ireland or the continent hold scarce jobs. The genuine love between the parents cannot withstand the battering of the forces that poverty and the times rain down on them.
One of these forces is the unrest in Europe and the growing anti-Semitic atmosphere. At the home of the Samuels family, Teresa is caught up in the deception between Mr. and Mrs. Samuels, as she becomes aware of infidelity in the marriage. Their only child, a girl Teresa's age, likes having her there and gives her some of her fancy dresses. Teresa shares the confusion Liam feels as she struggles over loyalties in her employer's home. Meanwhile at home her proud mother deeply resents her daughter "…cleaning another woman's toilet," even as she harshly scrubs Liam's knees to make him presentable for church.
Tell Me More About It: The teacher and priest are made into parodies that seem out of place in the context of the serious issues raised in this film. The points raised are simply too complex to be treated thoroughly in this 91 minute film. The final action by Dad, as he dons the black shirt uniform of the fascists, I found melodramatic and unbelievable. I tried to like this well intended film because I have found much to like in director Stephen Frears other work (High Fidelity, The Grifters, The Snapper, Gumshoe to name just a few). I wanted to know more about several of the subplots and more about these people. Overall it misses the mark and ends up as another dismal tale about living in poverty and frustration in the United Kingdom, that ultimately is too ambitious in what it tries to do. As a result, it does none of it really well.
DVD