60
Acting is the strongest element in Stephen Frears's Liam.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
100
San Francisco Chronicle by Edward Guthmann
Downbeat, ultimately tragic, but there's a wondrous, sad beauty here.
63
New York Daily News by Jami Bernard
Handsomely mounted but disappointingly slight.
75
Frears makes every note count for a lot in this beautifully gauged microcosm of big emotions expressed in small gestures.
75
Director Frears, in a radical shift from "High Fidelity," again (as in "Dangerous Liaisons") shows he's a master of period detail and subtle storytelling -- and the performances couldn't be more on the money.
70
New Times (L.A.) by Luke Y. Thompson
Though the film came out a year ago in the U.K., the timing here is unfortunate, and one has to wish that, like so many bigger productions, Liam could have migrated to a more-distant release date.
88
Ultimately grim, Liam is ripe in humanity --and even comedy.
70
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Peter Rainer
Has some rapturously observant sequences concerning childhood.
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer by Sean Axmaker
What's left at the end is an emotionally restrained vision of harsh, impoverished lives, more thoughtful than affecting, and never less than gorgeous, but so unfocused it leaves only scattered impressions.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer by Steven Rea
While there are similarities to the hardscrabble saga of "Angela's Ashes," Frears' film avoids the mawkish pitfalls of Alan Parker's screen adaptation.