听 
I bet Barry Levinson is one of those affectionate middle-aged dads who remembers his childhood as if it were yesterday. If they were of a different generation, his kids would be lounging at his feet, wrapped in his tales of yesteryear. As it is, they probably tell him bluntly that they've heard it all before and gawp at their computers instead. We've heard it all before too - Levinson's Baltimore youth, that is - filtered through "Diner", "Tin Men" and "Avalon", with "Diner" still the director's most triumphant blend of edginess, emotion, insight and comedy. At the very least Levinson always captures an acute sense of time and place.
With "Liberty Heights" he sets his fourth film in Baltimore, specifically 1954, a time of social excitement, upheaval and unease, when school desegregation was introduced, cars were becoming the most desirable object of all and rock 'n' roll was busy inventing the teenager. In the case of "Liberty Heights", all these factors cause two quick-thinking, deep-feeling Jewish brothers, Van and Ben (sons of failing burlesque club-owner Nate, played by Joe Mantegna), to question the limitations and possibilities of their identities: Ben's liking for a black girl who's a classmate and Van's addiction to a poised but troubled blue-blooded beauty certainly embody the theme of identity with real force.
In a film where all the performances are first-rate (the young actors in particular convey the exhilaration and confusion of the era), some scenes are given an emotional lift by rich, relevant dialogue, others have to shoulder just a tad too much talk. All the scenes are certainly meaty, but there is a need for some of them to be smaller, slimmer and for the injection of an occasional 'Big Moment'. I think it's really just a case of Levinson being so keen to communicate his themes, thoughts and feelings that he packs too many scenes, yet overall this is a properly serious, perceptive, touching story about something real. All this from a Hollywood studio. Golly gosh.
