Mr. Holmes
Feeling overdone on “Summer Blockbusters”, this was the week to take in something different. Our local art house was showing Mr. Holmes, a new sequel to the old Holmes movies, featuring Sherlock at an advanced age, tying up the loose ends of his life and suffering from progressive memory loss. It’s 1947 and the 93 year old Holmes (Ian McKellen) has been retired for a while, is living a quiet, rural life, is trying to sum up his last case, but has memory lapses. He is living with a housekeeper, Ms Munro (Laura Linney) and her son Roger (Milo Parker).
This is a complex story, taking place in several different times; the movie cuts back and forth between them. When the movie begins, Holmes has returned from Japan where he was in search of a special prickly ash concoction that might help his memory and vitality, after previous potions have failed. That trip had complex origins, based on events that happened years ago, before WWII between Holmes and a Japanese man. His quest takes him to what remains of Hiroshima, where Holmes is horrified at what he sees.
Holmes is also very concerned about wanting to set the facts straight about his last case, which had been written up by Dr Watson (now deceased) with incorrect facts. Holmes also spends much of his time beekeeping, a pursuit that creates a bond between him and Roger.
In his last case, Holmes was contacted by a concerned husband who suspects something that is strange about his wife’s behavior. When Holmes shadows her, sees her buying poison, forging checks that allow her access to her husband’s money and generally appearing to be in preparation for murdering her husband. Seeing what she seems to be up to, Holmes urges the woman to patch things up with her husband, but this is not to be.
Back in the present, Ms Munro, seeing the approach of Holmes death, is planning to move to another situation, leaving Holmes and ending her son’s grandfatherly relationship with him. An accident intervenes, however, when Roger is found collapsed, having been stung many times and being near death. Holmes’ is also in obvious decline too, putting Ms Munro in a difficult situation. How do all of these plot elements resolve? Suffice to say, they do, in the style of a meticulous Sherlock Holmes mystery.
Mr. Holmes really is the antithesis of the summer FX blockbuster. It’s a quiet, methodical story that is just SO English. The English countryside where Holmes lives is beautiful in a quiet way that befits the style of the story and the movie. The director is American, however, Bill Condon. The only other film of his I have seen was the equally interesting and very English Gods and Monsters, the story of the last days of Frankenstein director James Whale. Cinematography (Tobias Schliessler) is also terrific in a low-key way. It’s beautifully lush but never distracts from the focus of the movie, which is the story. The same goes for the music (Carter Burwell), which fits so seamlessly into the film that you hardly notice it (meant as a compliment). There’s a lot to like in this film, if you ever liked anything about Sherlock Holmes. It’s a fine end to his sort of deductive detective work; a case where Holmes is the detective for the events of his own life. If you’re not quite ready to dive into Ant Man, if you’ve had enough of Mission Impossible and Tom Cruise, and are not optimistic about the Fantastic Four, if you need a break from all of that FX and fast-cut action, this could be the movie to give you a break. Based on my observation and the credits, it appears that Mr. Holmes had NO (repeat NO) digital rendering anywhere. Ian McKellen is terrific as the ancient Sherlock, made up to look even older and more wrinkly than he is in real life. Laura Linney, as usual, is excellent in an invisible sort of way; she’s an actor that you see but often can’t recall who she is; she disappears into a role. Milo Parker (Roger) is also amazing, a kid actor who really a seems to have absorbed a rather complex and subtle role. Mr. Holmes is a film based on a complex script, well acted, simple props, and basic theatrical make-up, as I said, the antithesis of a summer movie. I enjoyed it.
