London,

Is Anybody There?

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Michael Caine is back - and he still has that magic

 

Man and van: Edward (Bill Milner) looks on as The Amazing Clarence (Michael Caine) tries to get his old jalopy going

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He may have been in some terrible films in his time but Michael Caine is nobody’s fool as an actor. At 76, he appears in John Crowley’s film as an elderly itinerant magician called The Amazing Clarence. A grieving widower, Clarence doesn’t want to spend the rest of his days in the shabby seaside retirement home that social services have sent him to.

He is what is generally known as peppery and when he reluctantly arrives at the home, he faces the rest of the wonky residents with horror. He reserves his particular spite for Edward, the 10-year-old son of the house (Bill Milner), who is turfed out of his room to accommodate him.

Edward is obsessed with ghosts and the supernatural, and he is particularly intrigued by what might happen when the residents eventually shuffle off this mortal coil. He has a tape recorder to use when they do. Meanwhile, his harried mum (Anne-Marie Duff) discovers that her husband (David Morrissey) is almost having it off with a pretty young home help.

Gradually, however, the old magician and the boy begin to understand each other better and become friends.

Gallery: Is Anybody There? Gala Night

For Clarence, their bond is a way to come to terms with his memories (and you can just discern his Alfie among them). For the boy, it is an exercise in growing up and gaining a little more sympathy for those in the late autumn of their lives.

Is Anybody There? is about looking back on life, accepting it, the bleak moments and all. But Peter Harness’s screenplay does not manage the desired subtlety and descends now and then into pawkiness and sentimentality — and Crowley’s direction is never quite sophisticated enough either.

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Even so, both Caine and Milner are excellent, playing together with a naturalness that is wholly convincing. Caine can, of course, do this sort of thing well enough standing on his head and doesn’t have to stretch himself unduly, even when The Amazing Clarence goes a bit gaga towards the end.

However, a high-powered cast of other residents are largely wasted and, since they include Elizabeth Springs, Leslie Phillips, Peter Vaughan, Rosemary Harris and Sylvia Syms, that is a real shame.

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