Is Anybody There? (Film)

IS ANYBODY THERE?
Dir: John Crowley
U.K, 2008
17/05/09


Written by Peter Harness about his childhood, Is Anybody There? is about a young boy called Edward (Bill Milner) growing up in his parents old-people’s home in the 1980’s. He’s obsessed with death and records the final moments of the homes inhabitants, but his parents have their own marital issues and their son’s preoccupations go unnoticed. Then an old magician, Clarance (Michael Caine) comes to stay at the home and after initial reluctance they become friends.

The film is awash with fine performances, even if the character arcs are slightly run of the mill. David Morrisey and Anne Marie Duff are particularly good as Edwards’ parents. They are growing apart and Edward’s Dad has an infatuation with their young employee, feeling himself growing old, out of touch and obsolete; all the while his mother is doing her best to attend to the elderly residents, feeling she has no help from anyone. The Old people themselves are an all star line-up of famous British faces, including Leslie Phillips as a retired General with a penchant for coarse jokes. But it is the two leads who are sensational. Michael Caine excels at playing Clarence, a proud man with a guilty past forced into what he sees as a demeaning existence. It’s his scenes of quiet emotional revelation that he really shows his true skill, but he is outshone by the young Bill Milner as Edward who is sensational as he manages to be funny, angry, sad and extrovert without ever letting on that he’s acting.

The relationship between the two is fun and tender. When they first meet Clarence nearly runs Edward over and he bursts from his van in a rage looking like a wild animal. There next confrontation comes after Edward accidentally kicks his ball into Clarence’s van, only this time Edward ends up being the aggressor and Clarence’s reaction shows a deeply sad man and it is here when Edward makes more of an effort to bond with him, perhaps out of loneliness or maybe out of guilt. Clarence in turn, after seeing Edward bullied at school, tries to encourage him to make friends, teaching him some magic tricks.

Edward also introduces Clarence to his fascination with death, something Clarence is a little uncomfortable with considering he is coming to the end of his life, yet he humours the boy and at one point holds a séance with him in the basement where there questions of “Is anybody there?” are greeted with knocks, an obvious fabrication from Clarence which nevertheless excites Edward. This is where the title comes from, being a film about death and the dying. When Edward’s mother tries to explain to him how everything dies and he shouldn’t be afraid Edward replies that he isn’t afraid, he just wants to know what awaits us after we have passed over.

The film is extremely funny. Much of the humour is dark and morbid but never insensitive, such as a scene where Clarence picks Edward up from school and teasingly plays along with the suspicions of the waiting mothers about who exactly this strange old man is waiting for a child, or a scene at the beginning where a stair lift is used to get a body down the stairs. The Humour is the saving grace of the film because despite the black comedy it does have it’s sentimental bits that are gratefully reigned in before it gets too mushy (though it also has bits of real tragedy such as Clarence visiting his dead wife’s grave - but with a twist).

Much of the sentimentality comes after Clarence is stricken with Alzheimer’s and he begins to loose his memory. If the film has one major failing it is in the presentation of the disease. It’s name is never mentioned and Edward seems to completely accept it without asking what is happening. Maybe he’s seen it in other patients but one gets the feeling that he probably never engaged enough with any of them to notice intimate things like memory loss. It also comes, without warning whilst Clarence is driving with Edward forcing him to crash. I’m not an expert but I figured that it was something that happened slowly not in waves of large attacks like Clarence seems to get. It’s much better when done with subtlety, such as when Clarence can’t remember where he is with a magic trick which leads to an accident at Edward‘s party, and one that has the audience cringing knowing full well what’s coming.

So the second half of the film becomes about revealing Clarence’s past, but never taking the viewpoint away from Edward. He opens up about his failed marriage poignantly surrounded by all the props of his past. Edward’s parents then begin to see how much Clarence has replaced them in Edwards’ life and that’s where their healing process begins, especially after Edward accidentally tapes his father’s digressions. It’s also warming how the recording device Edward uses to tape the last fleeting moments before death is later given to Clarence so that he can record the moments of his life he wants to remember, and it shows an accepting and understanding on the part of Edward.

At the end everything seems to be going back well again, and it is a little generic in it’s story structure, although it doesn’t tell us how much time has passed between scenes. Clarence could be ill for a month or a year, no doubt relating to the subjective passage of time on his part, but this is Edwards film so that seems unlikely. But none of this is to discredit it, it’s a warm and funny film that has a laugh at the morbidity of death without ever disrespecting it. It’s yet another great little British film to pop up recently. The period detail, as would be expected is so good it draws you in; they watch One Man And His Dog on the TV, the furniture and wallpaper are all browns and light boring colours and a lot of the colour is drained from the picture to give us the sense of boredom and inevitable aimlessness that surrounds most of the characters. It’s a nice little piece that Michael Caine (and the rest of the cast) is right to feel so proud of.