The centerpiece of the Roddy Doyle Barrytown trilogy (with The Van), The Snapper takes the Dublin neighborhood so marvelously sketched in longshot in The Commitments and zooms in on one family, the Curleys. Dessie (Colm Meaney, the Elvis-worshipping father in the earlier film) is a likable working-class hero for our times. In the crowded, rowdy Curley household there are no secrets, and that's just a microcosm of the neighborhood. So when 20-year-old daughter Sharon finds herself "up a pole"-expecting a "snapper"-tongues wag with forced concern. All anyone really wants to know is, who's the father? But that, feisty Sharon won't tell, and with good reason: it's too embarrassing. The truth has her da in a snit for a bit, but before long Dessie is reinventing himself, looking not so much to becoming a grandfather as for a second chance at being a man. No one in The Snapper does what he "should," only what's right. (JB)