With the grimly painted backdrop of 1930s Liverpool, acclaimed British filmmaker Stephen Frears ("The Snapper," "The Van," "High Fidelity," "Dangerous Liasons") offers up his latest film, "Liam," which puts a pair of storylines on perpendicular tracks.

A poor family of five is struggling to stay afloat as factories in Liverpool are closing and men are being reduced to begging and kissing up for work as casual laborers. Initially, Dad (Ian Hart) has work and shares little sympathy with his fellow workers rendered redundant.

But, inevitably, his plant closes and he must bring home the bad news to Mum (Claire Hackett) and their three kids, eldest son Con (David Hart), Teresa (played by Megan Burns, who won the Mastroianni Award at last year's Venice Film Festival for her performance here) and, the youngest, 7-year-old Liam (Anthony Borrows, who makes his acting debut).

Teresa gets a job working for a well-to-do Jewish family and is thrust into covering for the woman of the house, who is having an affair. But she can't quit because she and Con are now the family's breadwinners, which pushes Dad further into a web of despair and self-doubt.

So, Dad is easily caught up in the emerging British fascist movement, with grim results.

Meanwhile, Liam is struggling to understand the world around him, made more difficult by his often crippling stammer. He is on the eve of making his First Communion and is being initiated into the complex and frightening world of 1930s working class British Catholicism. At the same time he sees the despair, blight and terror in his community and it is the interplay between religion, society, economics and politics that are the focal point of the film.

By contrasting Liam's visions of organized religion with his experience, strikes and police repression, along with his witnessing political speeches of all bents and hearing Father Ryan's (Russell Dixon) brimstone and fire sermons, Frears is clearly drawing parallels. He somewhat subtly exposes the threats and intolerance he sees in the political and religious worlds and suggests that man is often caught up in them as in a whirlwind.

Everyone in the cast turns in a stellar performance. Hart, who has been brilliant in "Backbeat" and the similarly downcast "Wonderland," is again gripping. Liam's stammer and wide-eyed expressions suggest a remarkable talent for an 8-year-old actor. But the women of the film are especially powerful, with Burns nearly stealing the show with her measured portrayal of a young girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders. Hackett, too, does a fine job of tempering desolation with hope, of being hard as nails and also temperate and playful.

Grade: A

"Liam" opens Fri., Oct. 5 at Landmark's Downer Theatre. Click here for showtimes.