Is Anybody There? (2009)

It's 80's England. Edward is an angry young boy. His mother has turned the family home into an old age home. He has lost his room to one of the old folks. His father is going through a mid-life crisis. He has questions about death and uses his tape recorder on the old people. One day, Clarence (Michael Caine) arrives almost running him over with his van. He's a magician suffering from the lost of his love. The two bitter souls find friendship and salvation in each other.It's a little dark comedy. The movie is best with Michael Caine and the little kid together. It would have been great if they take off on an extended road trip away from that grim home. It would have given Caine more screen time and the home is too grim. Caine does big emotional acting although it could have been great to have more broad comedy. Caine and the kid are good together. There are a couple of big powerful acting scenes for Caine.

Michael Caine, the star of this picture, is a skilled craftsman but who has been in many movies not worthy of his talent. Unfortunately, while his performance is good, this movie joins the collection of his movies not worth the time to watch.This is the story of a preteen boy (Edward) in 1980s England living with parents who have converted their home into a home for the elderly, closer to a hospice for those waiting to die rather than a retirement home really. In this depressing environment, Edward becomes obsessed with ghosts and the supernatural. Along comes Mr. Caine as Clarence, a widower and retired magician, who wants little to do with Edward, the other residents, or life at the home. And here is where the flaws and clichés begin to mount up.The elderly residents represent a panoply of caricatures - none of which are complimentary to the elderly, such as the drunk, the senile veteran, the flirt, and the incapacitated. Predictably Edward charms Clarence out of his shell and into caring about others. I saw nothing in Edward's behavior that would cause such a radical transformation, but of course such change is essential to the plot. As further distraction to any attempt at an original story, the parents break-up, albeit temporarily, after the father makes a pass at an 18 year old girl working for them. Of course, the parents realize that they have fallen into old married couple behavior and at the end are seen to be working it out (by going on a date and each by finally putting in some effort to look for the other).The lesson being expounded here is that life is short so you should live life while you can because there is nothing you can do about death. Sadly, the movie did not find an interesting way to restate this wisdom.To see my other movie reviews, please visit:https://nomorewastedmovienights.wordpress.com

It's a coming of age story told in an original way, starting with one of the basic premises of coming of age movies - facing death will make you understand life, and than carrying it to the extreme and doing a U turn just before the end is reached. Because if you're 10 years old and you live in an old people's home you're bound to face a lot of death and that should mean you'll do a lot of growing up real fast, too fast to have any time to really understand anything. That's the basic situation all you have left to do is add one more ingredient to the mix and you've got a real gem. This ingredient is the new resident in the house. That's as far as I go without spoilers. But I still want to say that this movie does it in such a reserved fashion that you know it has to be British. It doesn't always work this way, it works perfectly in this case, because of the straight forward approach of the director and because it's done with three superb actors doing roles that would get them a nomination for the academy awards if this film had a better PR man. Michael Cain is as good as I ever saw him Bill Milner is no less impressive as a 10 years old that grew up too quickly and have to re learn how to be a kid again so he can grow up the right way, and Anne-Marie Duff, is completing the trio with a supporting role that is the supporting pillar of the whole story but has no name (in the cast listing) just a family function - Mum.If you get the chance to see it, don't miss this one, it's a keeper.

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)