Is Anybody There?
12A, Nationwide
Is Anybody There? stars Michael Caine as a grumpy old fella who, begrudgingly, goes to live in an old people’s home where his fellow residents are played by Rosemary Harris, Elizabeth Spriggs, Peter Vaughan, Thelma Barlow, Sylvia Syms and Leslie Phillips but not Peter O’Toole, who appears to be the one that got away. (Apparently, he is quite nippy once he gets going and a devil to catch.)
I was incredibly up for this film, imagining it as some kind of Cocoon, only hopefully not as rubbish. Plus it’s always nice to see the older actors doing their bit and taking the pressure off, say, Keira Knightley, who has been worked almost to the bone, the poor little thing. But it’s all rather underwhelming, and although my tears should have been jerked — the film does everything to make you cry bar run an onion under your nose — they were not.
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