Mr. Holmes

Yesterday, for the first time ever, I went to the theaters to watch an independent movie. Which independent movie you ask? “Mr. Holmes,” which came out a month ago. A.O. Scott started his review off by saying, ““Mr. Holmes,” a mild and minor bit of revisionist Sherlockiana, imagines the world’s greatest detective in his dotage, retired to a picturesque rural spot on the English coast where he tends to bees and fading memories.” It’s 1947, and Holmes is in his 90s. Dr. Watson has been long gone, and it turns out that the pipe and the deerstalker cap were made up exaggerations. Scott mentions that, “The keen ratiocinative powers that made Holmes an early hero of modern popular culture are still in evidence, though the cases he has left to solve are of a decidedly intimate, melancholy nature.” No spectacular murders or difficult conspiracies: just quiet riddles of memory and regret.

Directed by Bill Condon and based on a novel by Mitch Cullin, “Mr. Holmes” tells a few partly covering stories. From the cottage where Holmes (Ian McKellen) spends time with his housekeeper, Mrs. Munroe (the lovely Laura Linney), a war widow, and her young son, Roger (Milo Parker), the film once in a while goes backward and eastward, revisiting a 30-year-old case and a more recent break in Japan. In London just after World War I, Holmes follows a married woman (Hattie Morahan) whose husband (Patrick Kennedy) thinks her of taking illegal music lessons. In Japan, he meets with a novice herbalist, played by Hiroyuki Sanada, with his case of amnesia, takes care of his hives and encourages Roger’s dreams and ambitions, which are prevented by Mrs. Munro’s thin, worried mind-set.

The film’s stories are soft and weak, and they don’t interconnect as stylishly as they might, but they do serve as a passable framework for McKellen’s performance, which is nicely but unsurprisingly wonderful. With his wrinkled countenance and delicate diction, his Holmes is a study in cynical, intellectual charm. Scott commented that, “Anachronistic as it might be, it isn’t hard to imagine Benedict Cumberbatch, the kinetic, intensely focused Sherlock of the BBC series, aging into this mellow codger.” The same can’t be said for the smirky action-hero version played by Robert Downey Jr. in Guy Ritchie’s tiresome franchise.

You might also notice some relationship between Holmes and Magneto, McKellen’s character in the “X-Men” franchise, whose intelligence is filtered through rage and anger. Not that Holmes is angry, though he does now and then let down a glimmer of impatience. However, he is very much a man of feeling as well as a person of reason, and the suggestions of buried emotion that can sometimes be noticed between the calmly logical lines of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories are brought to rich life here.

The film suggests that there is a lot about Sherlock Holmes that his fans don’t know. Its most creative pride is that the real man has grown old along with his legend, sneaking into theaters to watch movies made about his exaggerated utilizes and calmly correcting some of Watson’s lies. A long retirement has improved him, and the specific desires and regrets accounted in “Mr. Holmes” might make up only a limited list.

Scott ended his review by saying, “That at least, is the tantalizing possibility implicit in Mr. McKellen’s whispered reminiscences and slow, graceful movements: that beyond the potted vignettes we are witnessing lies the untold story of a great, complex soul, a man more mysterious than any of the crimes he is supposed to have solved.”

I would highly suggest everyone go see this movie if it’s still playing in one of your theater that plays independent movie. Cumberbatch and Downey both admitted that McKellen is the best on-screen portrayal of Holmes ever, and I respectfully agree with them. He is awesome in this role and the movie is just one of the best, if not the best, Holmes movie I have ever seen. If it’s still playing near you, go see it because it’s definitely worth checking out this summer.

Hopefully you liked this review and thought I made a good recommendation this summer. Stay tuned next Friday to see what I will end August off with.