Mr. Holmes—Movie Review

by Peter J. O'Connell

Mr. Holmes. Released: July 2015. Runtime: 104 mins. Rated: PG for thematic elements, some disturbing images and incidental smoking.

The world just won't let Sherlock Holmes die. After Arthur Conan Doyle, who introduced the famed “consulting detective” in an 1887 novel (A Study in Scarlet), killed Holmes off in an 1893 story (“The Final Problem”), popular demand led the author to bring him back in 1901and feature him in stories written almost up to Conan Doyle's own death in 1930. Along the way plays and movies with the character began appearing, to be joined in time by radio and television shows. Many of these

 various iterations of Sherlock were “inspired by” rather than “based on” the canonical novels and stories of Conan Doyle. Recent years have seen a spate of hit films and TV series centered around Holmes.

Now in Mr. Holmes, which has a screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher, from an original story by Mitch Cullin,

and is directed by Bill Condon, we have a Holmes (Ian McKellen) at age 93 in 1947. Holmes has come from London to his rural retreat near the spectacular White Cliffs of Dover to engage in his avocation of beekeeping and to write a more accurate account of his last case, from 25 or so years before, than was done by the now-dead Dr. Watson. The rural retreat is maintained by a lonely widow, Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney), and her adventurous young son, Roger (Milo Parker).

The film is not a “study in scarlet”--there is no bloodshed—but is instead a study in aging. Holmes is the hero here, not because of the way that he deploys his powers of deduction, but because of the courage and dignity that he displays in dealing with the decline of his powers. The film is also a master class in acting, for Ian McKellen is superb in his portrayal of the great detective in his “final phase.” Laura Linney and the very promising Milo Parker provide worthy support to this great actor.

The mystery addressed in the movie is not “whodunit” but the mystery of life itself. What makes people who they are, and what makes them do what they do? Sherlock is not too old to learn some lessons about life. Sometimes a case (like his last one) is best seen, not as a “case” to be solved by deduction, but as a human condition to be understood by empathy.

Empathy joined to observation helps Sherlock move closer to understanding such things as a mother's feelings for her dead child—as in that case from the 1920s—and the stresses on a woman (such as Mrs. Munro) whose husband is dead and who has to raise her child alone and a son's need to know the truth about his missing father (a subplot that takes Holmes to Occupied Japan) and a fatherless boy's (Roger's) coming of age while his mentor (Holmes) ages. But the film in its conclusion also allows Sherlock Holmes an opportunity to be the polymath that we traditionally think of him as being when he puts his knowledge of the difference between bees and wasps to very good use!

“Footnote” to the film: There are many allusions in Mr. Holmes to various works in the Sherlockian universe. An example: At one point Holmes goes to see a movie based on a story about him. In this supposed 1940s movie within the 2015 film, the actor playing Holmes is actually Nicholas Rowe, who played Holmes in Steven Spielberg's 1985 film Young Sherlock Holmes. There are also non-Sherlockian allusions, including a Shakespearean one. Seeing an aged man wandering around near the White Cliffs of Dover brings to mind a famous scene from King Lear in which the elderly monarch plans to commit suicide by leaping from the cliffs. Ian McKellen has given notable performances as Lear.