Is Anybody There?

I lived in England in the 60's when many of these actors were in their prime. Here they are 50 years later and still working. They're not a bit afraid to act or look their age. What a treat for us and what a treat for young Bill Milner to act with these greats of British film and theatre. Quite a change from "Intermission" for the director John Crowley, but also suitably paced for an older generation. Nice enjoyable film about an old codger and a young boy. Anne Marie Duff had a tiny part (the last scene) in "Notes on a Scandal" and a larger one in a recent Irish film called "Garage." Check it out for understated acting and writing. David Morrissey played one of the leads in the TV series "State of Play" which is now a film with Russell Crowe and Helen Mirren.

Most great actors when they feel they have amassed a distinguished body of work tend to rest on their laurels and just churn out pretty bog standard stuff in their later years. Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro seem to be doing it of late with "Hide & Seek" and "88 Minutes" not to mention their joint effort "Righteous Kill" while Laurence Olivier long ago pioneered the process with such beauties as "The Jazz Singer" and "The Betsy". Michael Caine however seems to have gone the opposite route. While his long career is dotted with some minor classics it is also flooded with some major turds. In fact between "Sleuth" (1972) and – "Sleuth" (2007) there has been "The Man Who Would Be King" –"Hannah And Her Sisters" - "Mona Lisa" but there has also been "The Hand" – "The Swarm" – "Jaws: The Revenge" - "Blame It On Rio" (a lot of)etc. Recently though Michael Caine clearly feels he has his money made and can afford to be to be a lot more selective in his choice of roles. He has had a consistent run of well received performances in well-received films and has become an integral part of the revitalised Batman franchise. His latest choice is possibly one of his best performances. In "Is Anybody there" he plays "The Amazing Clarence" a former magician who is forced by increasing dementia to move into a nursing home, very much against his will. The nursing home is also home to 10 year old Edward whose parents own and run the place. He is just as unhappy to be there as Clarence is and inevitably a prickly friendship develops between the (very) cantankerous old man and the (very) cheeky young boy. Edward is fascinated with death and ghosts, hardly surprising given his environment and Clarence teaches him magic tricks to try and pull him out of this morbidity and encourages him to make friends with kids his own age. Indeed Edward does start to impress his class-mates with his magic tricks (particularly the ones involving fire) and he decides to have a birthday party at the home – with Clarence as the entertainment. But Clarence's Alzheimers is getting worse and he is becoming more and more forgetful, when it matters most. This is a beautifully acted film by both Caine and Bill Milner as Edward. Anne-Marie Duff and David Morrissey perform solidly as the parents while the residents of the home are played by a number of established faces including Leslie Phillips as a man with a passion for telling very dirty jokes – particularly to members of the clergy. The film is full of dark humour but is never patronising and frequently very moving. While Clarence's decline is a bit rapid - more of a plummet into full senility than a descent - it is still very well handled and ultimately leads to a very touching finale.

Greetings again from the darkness. I will always pay to see Michael Caine act. I have always found his relaxed, natural approach to be fascinating, entertaining and mostly effective. As the Amazing Clarence, an elderly career magician, he is just fantastic. This may be the first role where he has actually gone out of his way to look older than he actually is.

When he checks himself into a home for the elderly, he befriends the young son of the owner. The boy is played by Bill Milner who was exceptional in "Son of Rambow". His mom is played by Ann-Marie Duffy and she loves her son, but just doesn't have the time and energy to devote to him (or her husband) as she dedicates herself to the tenants.

The best part of the film is watching Mr Caine and young Milner interact. Their time is magical, pun intended. The sad thing is ... this is the only part of the film that works. The rest is a bit lame and certainly not up to the standard of "Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont".

Regardless, the film is worth seeing for the performance of Michael Caine. One of his best in years and really captures the pain of getting old and slowly losing one's self.

The magician is a curious fellow; he spends his days and nights ceaselessly going over his tricks and illusions, making sure all creases and seams are hidden from view so that he may able to dispel reality, if only for a few moments. For those on the other side of the fence, the magician can be seen either as a craftsman dedicated to his art, or as something of a ray of light that hints at something else; something more than the dirt in the ground and the worms at our feet. Yet, for all the glimmers of hope and magic that the illusionist creates in the wake of his act however, there is that ever-looming cloud of certainty that plagues his own reality—standing behind the curtain, the magician is aware of the wires, the trap doors and the contraptions set up to make the mundane seem a little more fantastic; to the man with the rabbit in his hat, the world is a playground where one can briefly create an imaginary world where magic lives, but unlike those that he tricks, the magic never truly lives on once that curtain falls.

Somewhere in the audience is a young, bright-eyed boy—his name is Edward (Bill Milner) and he lives in an old-folk's home with his mother (Anne-Marie Duff) and father (David Morrissey) where death is just as common as a hot meal. Rather than believing in the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause, Edward instead has a genuine infatuation with the afterlife, making sure never to miss an episode of Arthur C. Clarke's ghost hunt programme on terrestrial TV rather than play with LEGO; that is, until one day when a new resident takes up a place beside him and switches the channel over. The new guy is a man riddled with regret and cantankerous spite, his name Clarence (Michael Caine), previous occupation—you guessed it—magician. What so inevitably starts off as a hate-hate relationship between young paranormal enthusiast Edward and old, embittered and left-in-the-rain by ghosts of the past Clarence however soon blossoms into something a little more reflective and intertwined than any of them would have imagined.

The resulting story is something we've all seen or heard before, but perhaps with enough sombre nuances to render it something a little more cinsightful and uplifting than most of these stories. There's certainly no denying that Is Anybody There, on a purely ostensible, story-wise front does nothing new at all, but through development of these two characters (and others) who are brought to life wonderfully by the cast involved, the feature overcomes its rather tepid and pedestrian plot in favour of offering a subtle but pleasant character drama. Of course, there are issues throughout the feature which undermine all the good that is done throughout (this is most prominently realised in the final act which renders one plot-line through a banal, contrived resolution that directly clashes with the central story that ends on a much more refined note), yet much of these lay in the background, easy to overlook in favour of the movie's much more engrossing and charming elements.

So while at its heart a humble and restrained piece of cinema that doesn't necessarily break any new ground, it is this simplicity and obviously intentional subtlety that makes Is Anybody There a treat rather than a bore; director John Crowley acknowledges that Peter Harness' screenplay isn't one immediately pandering for big reactions from audiences, and he plays to this sense of realism and dignity throughout without sacrificing Harness' themes on life and death that trickle throughout. Make no mistake, you certainly couldn't be blamed for missing a small portion of Is Anybody There's reflections on life, but neither should you miss the rest—instead, Crowley and Harness craft a feature that is simple in its design but larger than life in its messages and inner substance; it may not be perfect, no, but it's got enough humanity in there thanks to the cast to make it worth while, even if you think you've seen these life-affirming rites-of-passage movies before.

• A review by Jamie Robert Ward (http://www.invocus.net)

Brilliant. I loved every minute of it.

The movie had the perfect mix of comedy and drama. It's a joy to watch Bill Milner (of Son of Rambow fame) go toe to toe with Michael Caine.

It was interesting to hear from the director how the movie originally had political undertones. As I recall from the Q&A at the TIFF screenings, the director said that the movie was set in the late 80s partly because of Margaret Thatcher - who declared that "There's no such thing as society... only individuals and families."

I'm glad they decided to skip the politics altogether though. It would have taken away from such a simple story that in itself is just beautiful one to watch.