Liam

Liverpool in the thirties. The shipyard closes and Liam's father is out of work. Liam is seven or eight, stammers badly, and is preparing for his first communion; at church he is told about hell every week, and at night he thinks about it. His older sister Teresa is in service with the Jewish family that owned the closed yard. Between debt, shame and anger, the father starts going to fascist meetings, where cheap Irish labour and Jewish owners are held up as the cause of the unemployment. It ends in a fire. Stephen Frears directs the British film; ninety minutes, with Ian Hart as the father, Anthony Borrows as Liam and Megan Burns as Teresa, from a screenplay by Jimmy McGovern. It moves at the boy's eye level; the audience understands what is happening before Liam does.