Is Anybody There? (2008)

Cautiously Recommended

UK/USA

Feature Film

Director: John Crowley

Writer: Peter Harness

Cinematographer: Rob Hardy

Composer: Joby Talbot

Cast: Michael Caine, Bill Milner, Anne-Marie Duff, David Morrissey, Linzey Cocker

A friendless soon-to-be-eleven-year-old boy with an obsessive interest in the supernatural forms an unlikely friendship with a suicidal retired magician, who lives in his parents’ nursing home, in this mildly diverting '80s-set film, which boasts an affecting performance from Caine, but makes little use of its supporting cast of veteran actors (the underuse of Peter Vaughan is particularly criminal). Iain.Stott