Liam – 2000 | 91 mins | Drama | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Stephen Frears‘s follow-up to last years High Fidelity is a bleak, Jimmy McGovern scripted exploration of Catholic guilt, fascism and poverty. The story concerns Liam (Anthony Borrows), a seven-year-old Catholic boy preparing for his first Holy Communion who lives with his parents in a small rented house in Liverpool during the 1930s. Liam’s sister Theresa (Megan Burns) works as a servant at the home of a wealthy Jewish shipyard owner, and she finds herself carrying messages between her employer’s wife and her young lover. Liam’s Dad (Ian Hart) loses his job at the local shipyard and is slowly drawn into the fascist backlash against immigrant Irish and Jews in response to unemployment. As he becomes increasingly bitter and frustrated, Dad eventually joins Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts and resorts to violence while his son looks on in bewilderment.