Liam
by CHRISTOPHER TOOKEY, Daily Mail
Stephen Frears' Liam tries at times to be a hard-hitting account of why Fascism had appeal in the Thirties, but settles for being a nostalgic recollection for a vanished Liverpool, shot in the earth tones of a Hovis commercial.
Ian Hart turns in an uncompromising, unsentimental performance as a man who turns to finding scapegoats in time of adversity - first the Roman Catholic Church, then the Jews - with predictably tragic consequences. Jimmy McGovern's screenplay resorts too readily to platitude and melodrama.
Too much looks like a made-for-TV reheating of Angela's Ashes. It can be recommended only to those who love to wallow in miserabilism.
Frears lacks Alan Parker's brilliance with inexperienced actors. Anthony Borrows and Megan Burns are cute as Hart's two children, but they needed to tear the audience apart emotionally, and they don't.
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