Mr Holmes review: It’s wistful and witty – a real delight that may leave you a little bereft at its end.
Mr Holmes review
Director: Bill Condon
Cast: Ian McKellen, Laura Linney, Milo Parker, Hattie Morahan, Patrick Kennedy, Hiroyuki Sanada, Frances de la Tour
Certificate: PG
Run Time: 104 minutes
Synopsis: An aged Sherlock Holmes at the end of his life, looks back at the man behind the celebrity as he grapples with the circumstances of an unsolved case that forced him into early retirement 30 years earlier with the help of his housekeeper’s young son.
The credits have just started rolling here inside the State Theatre for Mr Holmes and the first words that come to mind are ‘Well, that was melancholic wasn’t it’. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed this unique and interesting reinvention of Britain’s most famous detective – it’s just that it feels reminiscent in theme and dynamics to Bill Condon’s 1998 Oscar winning Gods and Monsters.
A faithful adaption of Mitch Cullin’s A Slight Trick of the Mind, Jeffrey Hatcher’s Sherlock Holmes (played by Sir Ian McKellen) is a rich and poignant re-imagination that is far from Sidney Paget’s iconicised pipe-smoking, deerstalker wearing sleuth of yesteryear or the dashing, crime-solving action hero of modern cinema. He’s the mystery in this film: a case where we discover the real man behind the Holmesian notoriety.
A cantankerous nonagenarian in failing health – both in mental and physical acuity – Condon’s Holmes is a real person forced to acknowledge the realities of mortality and dementia and learning to find solace in new friendships with people in the prime of life.
Mr Holmes review
The film begins with Holmes; now an old man aged 93, returning home to Cuckmere Haven from his journey to Japan to visit Tamiki Umezaki (Hiroyuki Sanada) in order to acquire Prickly Ash, a rare plant with powerful restorative qualities. No longer surrounded by Conan Doyle’s supporting characters, Holmes whiles away his days in Sussex tending to his bees and indulging his passion for Botany all under the watchful eyes of his widowed housekeeper Mrs Munro (Laura Linney) and her young son Roger (Milo Parker) who is intrigued with the fallen hero.
Shown glimpses of his fading memory, we soon learn that Holmes remains haunted by his final case involving an aggrieved husband Thomas Kelmot (Patrick Kennedy) who is concerned for his depressed wife Ann (Hattie Morahan) – a case that forced him into retirement some 30 years earlier. Following a through line of temporal shifts between true Holmes pastiche in 1919 and the forgotten hero in present day 1947, Holmes puts pen to paper in an attempt to recall the events in 1919 that led to him getting something devastatingly wrong. If only he could remember what it was in 1947.
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Mr Holmes review continues below.
The filmmakers make great use of the shifting times to pay homage to early cinematic representations of the popular cult figure of Baker Street juxtaposed by the elderly man at the end of his life who is embarrassingly aware of his fictionalised self. Sharply written and oft times entertaining, Holmes unravels the myth claiming he never wore a deerstalker hat or nor liked to smoke a pipe. He even finds himself in a cinema watching his self portrayed in a Basil Rathbone-esque B-movie.
The exposition has a certain frailty to it thanks to McKellen’s outstanding performance and cinematographer Tobias Schliessler’s incredible camera work. From the exquisite wide-angled, intimately framed shot of McKellen walking up a hill with the White Cliffs of Dover in the rear plane to his tracking of Mrs Kelmot through the streets of Holmesian London in bursts of crisp, 15 second tracking and panning shots that are far from simple to construct, this film has award season nominee all over it.
It’s wistful and witty – a real delight that may leave you a little bereft at its end.
Mr Holmes opens in the UK on June 19.
Mr Holmes review by Sacha Hall at the Sydney Film Festival, 2015.
