Is anybody there?

Cecil says: A return to our favourite Sydney cinema up by Collaroy beach on the north shore to see this low-budget UK film with Michael Caine playing a grumpy old man, a former magician, who signs himself into one of those care homes for the elderly.

Let's discuss the cinema first, before we get to the film. This amazing 1930s building just over the road from one of the best surf beaches in Sydney plays about the best programme of mainly independent films you can get anyway in the Sydney area. Its internal decor smacks of neglected English seaside resorts - wonderful old seats, chandeliers all over the place, a magnificent stage - but you know for sure that in every English resort such a building has now become an amusement arcade or a bingo hall.

The scandal is that this cinema does little or nothing to promote itself. Yes, it has wonderful films on show, but this Caine film played to an audience of 4: in fact the main film had started before Bea and I were joined by another couple. Take a look at its website, though ( www.unitedcinemas.com.au ) and you see nothing about the history and character of this fantastic cinema. Where are the archive pictures of great moments in its history? What about a decade by decade slide show of great films they have screened ? Or the changing audiences ? Or the changing decor - were there ever changes? Somebody must love this cinema enough to keep it open for such small audiences - shouldn't they open a Friends of Collaroy group to get worldwide attention on this marvel before it really does collapse in a pile of rubble... Take heed Collaroy - Cecil and Bea would be founder members...

So, to this film: a nice portrayal of a 1980s family struggling to make ends meet by converting their house into a care home for the elderly; the young teenage son fed up because he has had to give up his bedroom to a succession of ga-ga geriatrics; and the old magician (Caine) who pitches up one day in his magician's truck and gradually warms to the place and the people in it after his initial despair at the senile oldies around him.

Coming from East Yorkshire, I found some of the production (or director's?) choices slightly odd. The screenplay was obviously written for a care home somewhere near the coast and near Hull (Cecil's birthplace). They managed to have a bus to Hull in the film; they referred to Skidby windmill (one of the local landmarks), but the scenry was so unlike anything near to Hull and the nearby beach resort was nothing like anything on the East coast of Yorkshire. Even the accents in the local school were wrong (West Yorkshire, I think, but certainly not Hull accents) - I mean, if you're going to do a film set in Hull, why film it in Kent? And why not check up on local accents? Might seem a bit pedantic to non-locals, but did jar with me throughout the film. Isn't the Hull area good enough for filming in?????
** 1/2

Bea says:
I enjoyed the experience of seeing this film, but actually think it was overall somewhat forgettable (just demonstrated here at the Cecil and Bea residence by me asking Cecil which other film we saw in Australia when he suggested blogging the "first"... I remembered the other one all right - soon to be blogged). Michael Caine is like a brilliant spot of colour in the otherwise dreary, dull existance of this family, in the (supposed) north of England in the 1980s. And he really is brilliant in what he does with the dialogue, the spaces he occupies, and the decline he portrays. The other (well regarded) actors pale somewhat in comparison. I wasn't overly keen on the too-neat ending, although it did add to the film's feel-good vibe, and it was this ending, in fact, which made the film forgettable for me. However, a pleasant diversion.
** 1/2

Cecil adds: The film was actually more poignant for me because, just 3 weeks earlier, I had spent a distressing Saturday driving round the country roads north and west of Hull (yes, we did drive past Skidby windmill!) looking for a care home for my own Dad. There can be nothing more soul-destroying for an elderly person who needs constant care, but is of sound mind and has full mental capacities, than to be left in a home where your welcome at the front door is the crazed yellings and screeches of the residents who have basically lost their marbles. And why do the staff of homes like these have to shout in such ever-jolly voices to these old folk as if they were 2-year olds barely out of nappies? Maybe because senility takes you back to a child-like state, but surely there can be more decorum and respect; and voices can be pitched at normal adult register? We certainly saw one home rather like the one depicted in 'Is anybody there?' and for all the difficulties my Dad has had in the home we chose ultimately, I'm sure his experience would have been far far worse in a home like that.