Tracing a story between an old man and boy should induce narcolepsy. Although Caine takes the plaudits, and he is a good character actor, this works, and can only really succeed with Milner, who is very good. He is angry and confused but once he settles on the friendship with Caine he shifts and the relationship between the two opens out.It is a bit predictable but it works with the actors, the interchange between them is critical and in this case it does as Caine and Milner react with each other, making it possible for the audience to read their relationship.The other actors, some respected names, are not used as well as they could have been. There were other stories to tell there and its missed. The parents are fine, seen through the boy's eyes.The setting and mood is very well evoked: all dusty and damp with the second best of everything.

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.

Is Anybody There? (2008)Yes, this is a sentimental even sappy movie, with clichés of old man befriending young boy and both of them growing and changing as a result. But there is so much done right here, so much magic and sincerity throughout, and such good acting by the two leads, it's hard to fault it. It's like having a wonderful carmel apple and saying it wasn't good, you've had one before.Michael Caine is the headliner, and he's 75 at the time of filming, both looking and acting his age. That's not a marvel in itself, exactly, but it's admirable, though for Michael Caine, who acts more than he breathes, it was to be expected. At the other end of this spectrum is the young boy, played by Bill Milner, who is 13 at the time, very smart, subtle, and rather complex for a kid. The background to it all is an old folks home of an old-fashioned sort, charming and simple, a big old house in the country where a handful of aging but still ambulatory sorts keep going one way or another. I don't suppose it's a common thing these days (though it's set in Britain, and I don't have a clue about that, really), but it really seems like a perfect way to spend some waning years if you don't have family, or a vacation home in Arizona, to turn to. They don't have much, but they have each other, and director John Crowley (who did "A Boy") keeps the sentimentality in check without avoiding the true joy of some of the encounters. Caine's character, Clarence, was once a magician, and Milner's character, Edward, is interested in the paranormal. The two naturally overlap, though Clarence makes clear with growing emotional pain that there is no other world than this transient one and that Edward is wasting his time. Edward sees magic as something other worldly and gradually leans the reality of magic, that it's about illusion. Then, as time goes on between the two (and it isn't always sweet, but it's always tender), a new kind of illusion grows in the mind of the old man, and the other world takes on a third meaning, and a useful one to take care of some of his angst.I suppose this is a film with too much feel good warmth and forced complexity (forced in the family members who run the old folks home, mostly) to work for some viewers. But if you can be uncynical in the least, and enjoy something simple and heartfelt, tinged with the depths of dying and old age, watch this one. It swept me away.

This movie reflects on what's been going on in my heart for a while - interaction of the generation which has been passing away and our (grand) kids. What always irritated me was a culture which promotes an image of young and restless and, at the same time, discarding those who brought them up.I never believed a convenient wisdom that the elders are more comfortable in the retirement homes, or in the surrounding of their own. There is Baywatch on wide screen HDTVs, while retirees are conveniently shoved away behind the "active adults" curtains!