‘The Snapper’ (R)

Stephen Frear's "The Snapper" hits the spot nicely, if your spot likes hearty rounds of working-class comedy.

In another fine adaptation of one of Roddy Doyle's Barrytown Trilogy novels (Alan Parker's "The Commitments" was the first), Dubliners have at each other with splenetic vigor, gallows humor and peevish irony. In these hard times, humor's about the only thing in healthy abundance.

In this movie, nothing elicits dark laughter like a surprise pregnancy. It seems 20-year-old Sharon Curley (Tina Kellegher) has a "snapper" on the way. Her father Dessie (Colm Meaney), a regular bar-going, well-meaning, existentially exasperated Irishman, goes just a little berserk.

When Sharon refuses to reveal the father's name and announces her intention to keep the child, his life becomes a troubleshooting nightmare. There's no hiding the news now. The gossip mill -- fueled with Guinness and ill will -- gets going. It isn't long before the Curleys are the pariahs of the neighborhood.

When Dessie hears the father might be George Burgess (Pat Laffin), the father of one of Sharon's girlfriends, Dessie goes on the warpath. But his protective impulses are thwarted by Sharon, who declares she was impregnated by a visiting -- and untraceable -- Spanish sailor.

Disgusted at her father's heedless, volatile behavior, Sharon leaves for her own apartment and new maternal life. Dessie has his self-revelatory work cut out for him, if he wants to make up with his daughter and see his grandchild.

Screenwriter Doyle and director Frears create a blustery, atmospheric mixture of kitchen-sink realism and fairy tale. Frears keeps things moving at a speedy, engaging clip. This movie is nothing if not fast -- which helps the story skim over the cloying poignance.

Meaney, who was the funny, Elvis Presley-loving father in "The Commitments," is perfect here as the put-upon father of the non-bride, who works himself into a daily sweat -- all in the name of honor. As for Kellegher, her quasi-madonna presence -- in the middle of this salty-tongued world -- provides a surprisingly tender center to the movie. There's no point having all this bickering, quipping and screaming if there's nothing nice enough to fight for.