Is Anybody There?

Michael Caine triumphs as Clarence, a retired magician determined to grow old disgracefully

“This is temporary, this is only temporary”, insists crotchety Clarence, as he reluctantly checks himself – and his magician’s campervan – into an old-age home, hell-bent on avoiding a decline into dementia and death.

In his refusal to grow old, the gruff Clarence strikes up an unlikely, and what turns into a very endearing, friendship with Edward (played skilfully by young actor Bill Milner), the lonesome, quirky  10-year-old boy whose parents run the home and who has a macabre fascination with the afterlife, charting the death of elderly residents with a tape-recorder planted under their beds to capture the activity of the soul as it departs from the body.

While Clarence teaches Edward magic tricks and brings him out of himself, the young boy helps the ageing magician come to terms with his regrets – and in a sense they save each other from their respective isolation.

Based on the true-life experience of screenwriter David Harness growing up as a child in an old-age home, Is Anybody There? succeeds in being both hilariously funny and tremendously sad at the same time. 
Director John Crowley (ably accompanied by a fine cast including David Morrisey, Anne-Marie Duff, Leslie Phillips and Rosemary Harris ), demonstrates incredible sensitivity, humanity and humour in his portrayal of day-to-day life in this Fawlty-Towers-esque retirement home set in a seaside town in 1980s England, where half the residents suffer from some form of dementia.

It’s the small touching character details that make this film so funny: three old ladies sit in a row watching telly, one of whom takes great enjoyment in popping bubble wrap; an ‘entertainer’ brought in to get the residents to sing ‘The Wheels on the Bus,’ is  interrupted mid-flow by foul-mouthed Clarence. Not forgetting the hilarious, ‘did that really happen?’ scene when one of Clarence’s magic tricks goes horribly wrong.

Above its humour, the film raises pointed questions about the treatment of ageing people in our society. As Clarence puts it: “You live on your own for your whole life, and then they dump you with a bunch of strangers when you’re old” – and he’s got a good point...

But while old-age is clearly a messy affair, Is Anybody There? also insists that we see the elderly as human beings who demand respect. As Edward’s mother (Anne-Marie Duff) reminds him, it’s a “privilege” for him to grow up surrounded by so many old people.

The film gets sadder and more poignant as Edward watches Clarence become increasingly frail and forgetful, and haunted by all his regrets in life. And in spite of the young boy’s attempts to prove there is life after death, Clarence declares that death is ultimately nothing more than “the curtain coming down”.

Highly recommended.

Is Anybody There is released in cinemas on May 1st