Review: 'Liam' hits you like a blast furnace

By Paul Tatara
CNN Reviewer

(CNN) -- When he's in the right mood, director Stephen Frears is loathe to pull punches. Even his most amusing movie, "Dangerous Liaisons," is steeped in spite, anger, and deceit. But his latest theatrical release, "Liam," may well be the most painful film ever made about the one-two punch of religious dogmatism and overwhelming poverty. It's a complete reversal from Frears's last picture, "High Fidelity." This one, far from being cute, hits you like a blast furnace. And the heat is often too much to take.

Though several actors carry the weight of the plot, "Liam"'s heart and soul is embodied by 8-year-old Anthony Borrows, who plays the stuttering title character. Borrows delivers one of those remarkable, pre-adolescent performances that rises from a place so pure it's impossible to criticize.

He seems to be living every heartrending moment in the real world, as if the camera is recording an actual person's systematic destruction. You often feel guilty that the hard lessons of this story are delivered by such an innocent, open-faced performer.

Liam lives with his family in 1930s Liverpool. The specter of World War II dances on the horizon, as the people of England wrestle with political and economic turmoil. Liam's proud, hard-working father (Ian Hart), is doing the best he can to keep a roof above his children's heads, but even that becomes tenuous when the local shipyard closes. His wife (Claire Hackett)is at wit's end just trying to clothe Liam, their teen-age daughter, Teresa (Megan Burns), and their oldest son, Con (David Hart.)

The level of despair here almost trumps "Angela's Ashes," if you can imagine that. Economics are the least of it. When Teresa lands a job cleaning the home of a rich Jewish couple, she finds herself covering for the wife (Jane Gurnett), who's having a somewhat open-air extra-marital affair. The hand-me-down clothes and occasional slabs of meat Teresa receives from the woman are much-needed offerings that nevertheless send Mum and Dad into bouts of self-loathing. Dad starts drinking when he can't find work, and Mum becomes more harried with each passing day.

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As the situation grows more hopeless, a nasty whiff of anti-Semitism fills the air. Dad is becoming keenly aware that the people he owes money to are all Jewish, and he's a man in dire need of a scapegoat. However, Frears and screenwriter Jimmy McGovern seem more inclined to blame the Catholic church for their characters' unholy existence.

Much of the film deals with Liam's initiation into Catholicism at a time when blind religious fervor too often took the place of compassion. It's no wonder Liam's stutter grows more pronounced when he's at school. His teacher's manipulative descriptions of our sparkling souls growing filthy from sin is enough to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. She and the parish's demanding priest (Russell Dixon) drive the children toward their first confessions and Holy Communions as if they're prison inmates. The lessons they teach, though steeped in scripture, border on contempt for humanity.

Hart, who established himself by playing the young John Lennon in both "The Hours and the Times" and "Backbeat," seems ready to boil over at any moment. Since his character is grasping for somewhere to point his anger, you never know who or what will set him off. It's unfortunate that he doesn't get to carry that anger through a fully-realized third act.

The horrible moment when Dad finally takes action leads to the immediate devastation of everything that gives him strength. He manages to immolate the last vestiges of his own soul, even as he aims for someone else. That's a lesson that means much more today than it did a scant 10 days ago, but it happens too quickly to make for a satisfying finish.

"Liam" is absolutely uncompromising. Most of the torment is psychological, but there's also profanity and one moment of genuinely ugly violence. You'll want to steel yourself before you watch it. Rated R. 90 minutes.