Mr Holmes
Over the past 9 months I've had six free Vue cinema tickets at my disposal. I used the last one yesterday on a screening of Mr Holmes, completing a run including Interstellar, Birdman, While We're Young and Still Alice. An ailing 93 year old Sherlock Holmes (Sir Ian McKellen) has retired from public life, living in Dover with his housekeeper Mrs Munroe (Laura Linney) and her son Roger (Milo Parker).
The plot centres on his final case, an attempt to correctly recall and retell a case that has been misrepresented in prose by his old charge Dr Watson (who it is implied has written the Arthur Conan Doyle stories). There's fun to be had with the notion that Holmes lives in same world as his stories, particularly when he reacts in disdain at a cinema screening of one of his fictionalised tales.
Anyway, needless to say we are some way away from Guy Richie's pugilist interpretation of the character here. It's a mellow, thoughtful 100 minutes with McKellen excelling in the title role, capturing Holmes' anguish as he attempts to handle the fact that his powers are failing him. There's an underlying sense that despite an impeccable intellect, he has always struggled with human nature, with a profound sense of regret at how the case he was trying to remember actually unfolded.
It's Holmes unlikely friendship with Roger (Parker plays the part particularly precociously, there's a tongue twister) that drives the film and you suspect that Sherlock sees a lot of himself in the young man. Roger has a brilliant mind but sees himself constricted by circumstance, living with his housekeeper mother who eyes a move to work in a hotel in Portsmouth. Linney plays Mrs Munroe with a quiet dignity, attempting to keep order with these two forces, neither of whom appear to be concerned with sparing her feelings. Holmes tells her at one point "Remarkable children are often the product of unremarkable parents" while later Roger protests that "She can't even read" when Sherlock successfully deduces that she has accepted employment for the two of them elsewhere.
There is a Japanese subplot that jars slightly with the rest of the story but that's a minor complaint. It's the sort of film that you mull over and contemplate, which I've continued to do since.
The plot centres on his final case, an attempt to correctly recall and retell a case that has been misrepresented in prose by his old charge Dr Watson (who it is implied has written the Arthur Conan Doyle stories). There's fun to be had with the notion that Holmes lives in same world as his stories, particularly when he reacts in disdain at a cinema screening of one of his fictionalised tales.
Anyway, needless to say we are some way away from Guy Richie's pugilist interpretation of the character here. It's a mellow, thoughtful 100 minutes with McKellen excelling in the title role, capturing Holmes' anguish as he attempts to handle the fact that his powers are failing him. There's an underlying sense that despite an impeccable intellect, he has always struggled with human nature, with a profound sense of regret at how the case he was trying to remember actually unfolded.
It's Holmes unlikely friendship with Roger (Parker plays the part particularly precociously, there's a tongue twister) that drives the film and you suspect that Sherlock sees a lot of himself in the young man. Roger has a brilliant mind but sees himself constricted by circumstance, living with his housekeeper mother who eyes a move to work in a hotel in Portsmouth. Linney plays Mrs Munroe with a quiet dignity, attempting to keep order with these two forces, neither of whom appear to be concerned with sparing her feelings. Holmes tells her at one point "Remarkable children are often the product of unremarkable parents" while later Roger protests that "She can't even read" when Sherlock successfully deduces that she has accepted employment for the two of them elsewhere.
There is a Japanese subplot that jars slightly with the rest of the story but that's a minor complaint. It's the sort of film that you mull over and contemplate, which I've continued to do since.
Comments
Post a Comment