Angela’s Ashes showed that human misery can be simply miserable on the screen, but Stephen Frears, undaunted, takes up a similar scenario with a weightier and more symbolic approach in this period melodrama penned by Jimmy McGovern, who wrote the controversial Priest. Religion plays a potent role in this film, too, enfolding the lives of a working-class Catholic family in Depression-era Liverpool. The title tot (Anthony Borrows) prepares for his first Communion, but his stuttering and his fascination with female anatomy may make his first Confession an ordeal. Teenage Teresa (Megan Burns) works as a housemaid for a wealthy Jewish family, but her complicity in an adulterous affair torments her conscience. Dad (Ian Hart) has lost his job, and his resentment of Jews and Irish immigrants nudges him into a new faith: fascism. Mam (Claire Hackett) is the bulwark; meanwhile Father Ryan (Russell Dixon) lays down the law with tirades about hellfire that Frears takes too literally. Although richly textured and exquisitely acted, Liam would have done well to adhere more closely to the child’s point of view; in the end it falls prey to contrivance and cliché.