Wit, Distress a Delightful Mix in ‘Snapper’ : Stephen Frears’ fiercely alive movie about a family in a working-class Dublin suburb thrives on the interplay of fine writing and empathetic acting.

“The Snapper” (selected theaters) is amiability itself. Good-humored and sassy, it is one of those charmingly off-the-cuff films that doesn’t let its small scale stand in the way of pleasure. And, filled with the characteristic bawdy and biting wit of Ireland, it takes a satisfaction in the music of spoken language that is as engaging as it is rare.

That language comes courtesy of Irish writer Roddy Doyle. His first book about Barrytown, a working-class Dublin suburb, was the source for Alan Parker’s “The Commitments” and his latest, “Paddy Clark, Ha, Ha, Ha,” just won the Booker Prize, Britain’s premier literary award.

In between, Doyle wrote “The Snapper,” its title taken from Irish slang for the baby its comic, chaotic story revolves around. The same crisis-a-minute family, where no one so much as thinks of holding their tongue, returns from the earlier film, though with their name changed from Rabbitte to Curley for contractual reasons. But the spirit this time is more natural and less grandiose than in “The Commitments” and for that credit Stephen Frears.

One of the most versatile of British directors, with work ranging from “My Beautiful Laundrette” to “Dangerous Liaisons” and “The Grifters,” Frears knows how to make comedy funny without shortchanging the often painful emotions underneath. And it is that realistic balance between humor and distress that makes “The Snapper” so vital and appealing.

Certainly nothing seems initially comic about the predicament of eldest daughter Sharon Curley (Tina Kellegher). Just 20 years old, she informs father Dessie (Colm Meaney) and mother Kay (Ruth McCabe) that she is pregnant. Not only that, she’s not telling who the father is.

Nonplussed at first, Dessie’s strongest response to the news is his usual all-purpose “a man needs a pint after that.” And the local pub is in fact where Sharon heads as well, gossiping with her lovelorn pals and refusing to reveal anything more about the unknown father than “it wasn’t Bart Simpson.”

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In as small an enclave as Barrytown, however, where your neighbors know your business before you do and no one is spared the lash of ironic wit, the question of “who Sharon’s having it for” becomes one of ever-increasing fascination. And when hints of a suspect emerge (it isn’t Bart Simpson) it plunges the neighborhood into a comic/horrific tizzy that has everyone talking.

At the center of that verbal firestorm is not only Sharon, but her loving if perplexed father, Dessie, both of whom find the crisis changing them in ways no one could have expected. And though the film’s success wouldn’t be possible without the vigorous performance it gets from Kellegher, it is Colm Meaney’s exasperated but resilient Dessie that makes the strongest impact.

Meaney, who had the advantage of playing the same character in “The Commitments,” is human, vulnerable and triumphant as the father of six, a knight in rusty armor whose family is forever threatening to get the best of him. With a mobile face, a command of the language and a fine repertory of puzzled looks, the Dessie who worries “I’m only the dad, they’ll laugh at me” is a cinematic parent to marvel at and enjoy.

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It is characteristic of the way “The Snapper” (rated R for “language and some sexuality”) thrives on the interplay of fine writing and empathetic acting that some of its most memorable moments are in small family scenes that don’t advance the plot at all. For we are so caught up in these characters and their lives, nothing they do fails to interest us.

And the feeling “The Snapper” has of just appearing on screen without outside assistance is an indication of what an expertly self-effacing job of directing Stephen Frears has done. Like Alan Parker and Neal Jordan before him, he has refreshed himself in local waters after being parched in Hollywood, and this fiercely alive film is the welcome result.

‘The Snapper’

Tina Kellegher: Sharon

Colm Meaney: Dessie

Ruth McCabe: Kay

Karen Woodley: Yvonne

Pat Laffan: George

Released by Miramax Films. Director Stephen Frears. Producer Lynda Myles. Executive producer Mark Shivas. Screenplay Roddy Doyle, from his novel. Cinematographer Oliver Stapleton. Editor Mick Audsley. Costumes Consolata Boyle. Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (language and some sexuality).