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Clarence (Michael Caine) is not going gentle into that good night -- or that good old-age home called Lark Hall.
"A lot of jabbering simpletons rushing about, wetting themselves," the retired magician snarls, as he arrives. "People you don't know telling you what to do."
The Englishwoman (Anne-Marie Duff) who runs the place with her husband (David Morrissey) grabs his hand and calms him. "Just give it a go," she gently suggests and he agrees to, vowing his residency there will be temporary.
But, in "Is Anybody There?" opening today at the Manor and AMC-Loews, Clarence is the best thing to ever happen to 10-year-old Edward (Bill Milner).
He's the only child of the struggling owners and he is no Benjamin Button, who happily thrived with his elders or contemporaries. Edward is obsessed with death and is none too happy about losing his room to another old-timer.
- Starring: Michael Caine, Bill Milner
- Rating: PG-13 for language including sexual references, and some disturbing images.
- Web site: http://isanybodytheremovie.com
In one of their priceless exchanges, Edward laments, "I used to have a room with Paddington bear wallpaper." Clarence's retort: "Well, I used to have a beautiful wife and all my own teeth."
Screenwriter Peter Harness grew up in a retirement home and spun that into "Is Anybody There?" directed by John Crowley ("Intermission").
The movie is set in an English seaside town in late 1987 and '88, and a few scenes border on the twee, some excellent actors such as Rosemary Harris get too little screen time and changes in Clarence's mood and health seem dramatically and unrealistically accelerated.
The relationship of Edward's parents lends some bite and Milner, so wonderful in "Son of Rambow," shows he's not a one-hit wonder. But the main reason to see this is Caine who, when he recalls "I was a good-lookin' fella," could be talking about himself.
In "The Weather Man" opposite Nicolas Cage, Caine played a prize-winning author who was dying. We're accustomed, however, to seeing him as a man of vigor or firmly in calculating control as in "The Dark Knight" and "Sleuth."
Here, his Clarence is vulnerable and unable to hold off the ravages of regret and time and the 76-year-old performer is marvelous and touching. He is the rising tide that lifts this boat and makes us happy to be along for the ride, however bumpy.
