First off, I want to say that I am drawn to movies that have, at their core, a genuine feeling of sadness for humanity. It's not so much that these films offer a pessimistic view of the world - although, I guess you can label it that way - as they just seem to have a clear understanding of the horribly awful things we often do to one another.Shot in black and white, in perpetually fogged out/drizzly England, this story of one older woman's loneliness and dementia tinged world is about 5 steps down into the dungeon of depressing. It offers a kind of sad relief - the kind that comes from knowing that, although things are terrible, they could be much, much worse.I've always been one to not quite understand the desire for a "feel good" movie. All movies, if they work as they should, will leave you feeling better for having seen them - whether silly or serious. This is one of those films.

The Whisperers is written and directed by Bryan Forbes ( the excellent Séance On A Wet Afternoon). Adapted from Robert Nicolson's novel, it's about an impoverished elderly woman, Mrs. Maggie Ross (Dame Edith Evans), who lives alone after her good-for-nothing husband and son, Eric Portman & Ronald Fraser respectively, have long since abandoned her. Living in a run down flat in the rough part of the neighbourhood, Mrs. Ross relies on public assistance to make ends meet. She also hears voices {The Whisperers of the title} and indulges in a delusional fantasy world. A world that amazingly opens up when she discovers a significant amount of money hidden in one of her cupboards.Tho the novel is set in Glasgow, Forbes sets the film adaptation in Manchester. Joining Dame Evans {Academy Award nominated for Best Actress/BAFTA winner}, Porter & Fraser in the cast are also Nanette Newman, Avis Bunnage and Gerald Sim. What first should be made clear is that this is no fun fantastical movie, the kind that the advertisement I read for it indicated it was going to be. This is a tough melodramatic picture that while it 's backed up my a top performance from Evans, drifts along all too happy to wallow in its borderline misery whilst offering up a rather bleak "message" in the outcome. Serious things are glossed over by leaning too much towards the dubious point that the piece wants to make. While a crims and coppers sub-plot feels forced in for impact but actually hinders the purpose of the story. Having not read the novel myself, I don't know who's to blame, Nicolson or Forbes and his team,? So although the film scores high for achieving a stifling sense of paranoia, one that is akin to poor Mrs. Ross, it none the less strangles us with intent to only then confuse its aims and deliver sub-standard melodramatics. 5/10

This grim tale about the loneliness and vulnerability of old age, set in what must be the most rundown section of Manchester, manages to touch us in an unsentimental manner. Its chief quality is the crisply photographed slum in which it largely takes place, like the last remains of the 19th century surviving into the post-War 20th. The protagonist, Margaret Ross, played by the stately Edith Evans, lives in a cluttered ground floor flat in this urban wasteland of rain-slicked cobblestone streets without cars or pedestrians, but an abundance of crumbling brick walls, gutted buildings and stray cats. The opening credit sequence of grey rooftops under rainy skies is particularly striking.At home she looks through newspapers, eats bread with honey, sips tea and listens to radio as her sink faucet drips, drips, drips. She constantly hears voices (the "whisperers" of the title) and turns up the radio to drown them out. When the upstairs neighbors, an interracial couple with an infant, pound on the floor in protest, she pounds back on the ceiling with a broomstick and is showered with bits of plaster. (We see the bald patch from where the plaster has fallen but the absence of other patches means that she has never before banged on the ceiling; this strand of the story would have been more convincing if more of the ceiling was similarly defaced.) When not talking to the imagined voices, she spends her solitary life visiting the library where she surreptitiously warms her feet on the heating pipes, collecting welfare from a local government office where she makes frequent references to her good breeding and high-class family connections, listening to sermons at a local evangelical storefront chapel, and tending to household chores which seem to consist mostly of emptying large quantities of dust, coal ashes and bottles and cans from which she derives most of her nourishment.Evans brings dignity to the role but somehow she does not seem to be the right actress for the part. Margaret Ross is a woman of humble origins. Evans is a thoroughbred. True, she does claim that she married beneath herself, but that would be putting it mildly. Still, she has the acting skills to keep us entertained, and she gets brilliant support from the secondary players: Eric Portman as her surly husband, Avis Bunnage as a predatory welfare mom and Gerald Sim as a welfare clerk add a great deal to the overall presentation. Leonard Rossiter, too, shows up for a strong few minutes as a government official. And John Barry supplies a melancholy but unobtrusive musical score.Evans got an Oscar nomination for this performance. Fair enough. But I think Gerry Turpin should have also gotten one for his beautiful cinematography.

The Whisperers is a quiet British film set in Manchester, England which is northern and quite separate from the southern part of the country. In this film, Dame Edith Evans plays Margaret or Maggie Ross, a lonely elderly woman, who has a son, Charlie, and an estranged husband, Archie. The film opens as she spends her day going to the police complaining about the interracial couple upstairs or anything. She goes to the library to read the newspaper and places her feet by the heater for warmth. She also stops at the office for assistance where one person, Conrad, played wonderfully by under-appreciated Gerald Sim looks upon her very well. Her son visits for only five minutes and leaves a secret stash of money behind which causes more problems than solves for her. Maggie is quite lonely but fiercely independent. She gets the money and believes it's hers from assistance. Not realizing it may have been her son's stolen money, Charlie goes to prison but no mention of him after the money leads to meeting a woman who takes her to the bar and takes advantage of Maggie's vulnerability. Once she is passed out, the wife's husband takes her and dumps her near her home. They have robbed her and left her to die in exposure. She survives and recovers and somehow the audience meets Archie who is bribed into taking Maggie home from the hospital and staying with her. Maggie kept all of his newspapers just as he ordered and read them in her spare room which was like a library. When she comes home to the flat, the room is cleaned up. We learn that the newspapers symbolized her husband's presence in the household. After all, she never bought the paper but read it at the library for free. So all the old papers were his is cleared up. You feel sorry for Maggie but there are so many of Maggies out there who just want a little companionship, friendship, and compassion without something in return. Dame Edith Evans surely proved her acting skills making us feel for Maggie Ross.