Loosely based on the director's own family and upbringing, it presents an evocative account of working-class life in Liverpool, England during the 1940s and '50s. Births, marriages and deaths, and an expressive use of music, provide the underpinning for a film that is beautiful, heartbreaking, resonant but never sentimental. Now regarded as a masterpiece of British cinema, and boasting a startling performance from Pete Postlethwaite as the head of...