(Rated R, 96 mins.)
It’s the 1930s, and we’re peering through a child’s eye at Britain between the wars, a grimy country wracked by depression and political uncertainty. Our hero, seven-year-old Liam Sullivan (Anthony Burrows) is a poor, cherub-faced boy whom we want to just take home and feed but there’s precious little food in the hovel rented by his dad – played by Ian Hart, who is magnificent as a feisty and troubled rebel with a cause. Liam’s older sister, Teresa (Megan Burns), knows that there’s another universe out there – she’s recently taken a job with a wealthy family in the lavish mansion, and she’s fascinated by their piano lessons and marble floors. But the Sullivan children’s nights are spent coping with hungry bellies and shared beds, while their days are spent being brainwashed by fire-breathing priests who exhort them to cleanse their souls, less they suffer the flames of hell. As if life were not confusing enough, Liam watches as his own family falls prey to the temptations of sex and bribery, in the end discovering that breaking the commandments is sometimes the holier thing to do. Little does young Liam know that despite his supposed flaws, he’s really a baby Jesus type in disguise. Young Burrows and Burns are extraordinary child actors in a moving story that somehow finely blends drama and comedy. This movie is for anyone who spent childhood on their knees confessing those haunting words “Forgive me father for I have sinned.”