Every now and then, Michael Caine turns in a performance that makes you realise he can be a fine actor when he puts his mind to it.  Get Carter, The Ipcress File, Hannah And Her Sisters, Educating Rita — a diverse bunch, united by the fact that Caine respected that he’d been given a well-written part, and applied himself to the business of acting.  To that list can be added a new title, the altogether delightful Is Anybody There?

The problem is, describe the film at all and you’ll pretty much guess how it plays out.  This is bittersweet stuff, wherein Clarence, a retired magician played by Caine, turns up at the door of an old peoples’ home run by Anne-Marie Duff, and strikes up a friendship with her son Edward, more than capably played by Bill Milner.  So, I tell you that and you can pretty much delineate much of what happens, as the two start off at odds and become close, each learning from the other.

The fact that the story is predictable doesn’t mean it can’t surprise.  And the beauty of the film is in the way it unfolds, in the choices made by writer Peter Harness and director John Crowley.  In practice, that means a nimble script which paints things with the lightest of touches, always subtle in the way it depicts relations between the characters.  It’s very much Edward’s mother’s dream to run the home, husband David Morrissey basically along for the ride.  And young Edward is left to his own devices, specifically the tape recorder that he uses to document the passing of the home’s residents.

Edward is determined to find out what happens after death, Clarence angry about his own wasted life.  In particular, he’s grieving the way he and his wife split up as a result of his infidelities: since the divorce his life has been hollow at best. Years of tenderness thrown away for a few quick fumbles with women overly impressed by Clarence’s way with a deck of cards.

Naturally, it’s through those cards that Clarence bonds with Edward.  But at the same time as the two become friends, Clarence is showing signs of dementia.  It all comes together when the entertainer puts on a show for Edward’s birthday, and a trick with a guillotine gets out of hand.  It’s actually a home resident’s finger that gets out of hand, severed by the blade in a funny and twisted scene that also signals the precise moment that Clarence’s arc goes down.

The whole business could be as grating as an ad for Werther’s Toffee, the candy preference of war criminals everywhere.  Only, the script continually pulls back from cheap sentiment and allows the viewer to fill in some blanks.  Whether that’s through good writing or what happened in the edit suite I couldn’t say: it amounts to the same thing.

Altogether, Is Anybody There? is an unexpected delight.  And let’s hope it bodes well for the continued existence of BBC Films: even the global success of Slumdog Millionaire counts as too little too late for the future of fimmaking at C4, and it’d be tragic if the BBC were to come to a similar conclusion.

Why it’s set in the eighties I couldn’t say.   Perhaps it’s to do with the way that support for the elderly has developed since then.  Now, homes tend to be bigger affairs, and regulations would make some of what happens on screen impossible today.  A shame: the idiosyncratic warmth with which Anne-Marie treats her clients is a tonic.

Pretty much everything about the film works a treat.  Thought has gone into every aspect of what you see, from casting to set dressing to the magic tricks that Caine performs and his young friend seeks to master.  Yes, it’s slight, and predictable, but it’s also more than capably accomplished and genuinely touching on a few occasions.  A few more turns like this from the British film industry, and a few less Lesbian Vampire Killers, and we’d have a film sector to be proud of.  Hey, a man can dream can’t he?