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Sep 11 09 6:00 PM
Sep 11 2009 by Our Correspondent, Liverpool Daily Post
BOOKISH teenager Edward (Bill Milner) lives in a retirement home run by his parents (Anne-Marie Duff, and Liverpool's David Morrissey).
He is fascinated with the after-life and he secretly records the residents on his cassette player, hoping to capture the moment a soul leaves the body.
The boy's solitude is interrupted with the arrival of grieving widower Clarence (Michael Caine), a retired magician. At first they clash, but a dramatic incident brings them together, forging an unlikely friendship.
This is a surprisingly tender coming-of-age story, and with its disparate themes and downbeat setting it should not work, but screenwriter Peter Harness teases out the humour in the grimmest of situations.
Caine delivers a tour de force performance as a one-time showman slipping inexorably into the grasp of Alzheimer's, never once striking a single false emotional note and matched sob for sob by the wonderfully expressive Milner. Supporting performances invigorate even the smallest roles.
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