Review of Mr. Holmes (2015) by Andy T — 24 Jun 2016

What is really enjoyable about this movie is that it isn't actually about Sherlock Holmes. The Holmes character (masterfully portrayed by the unparalleled Ian McKellan) is a vehicle for examining the nature of imagination in a rational world.

Holmes is haunted by his last case in which his unflinching logic and blunt revelation of the facts becomes the catalyst for a young wife's suicide. Every character in the movie relies not on the cold hard facts of logic but on helpful fictions that allow them to get through the turmoil of life; Mrs Munro believes life will be better elsewhere and she can escape her past, young Roger (played by an amazing young Milo Parker) believes his father was a hero, Ann Kelmot believes her children are alive in another world and she can speak with them, and Sherlock himself believes he can solve everything with his mind - even the mysteries of the human heart.

The "mystery" of the story, however, is human nature. What are we as beings? Are we machines only? Are we able to survive merely on facts? Why do we need stories and mythology and sweet little bedtime tales to cool our night terrors? And how does the human mind, failing and flawed as it is, continue to try and make sense of a mad (post WW1 and WW2) world? In this way the movie is parallel to "The Life of Pi" in which two realities, that of a violence, and horror and that of mystery and imagination are contrasted with each other.

In the end, "Mr Holmes" suggests that perhaps there is much more to human life than cold logic; perhaps we as a race are not as clinical as Arthur Conan Doyle made us out to be nor as simple and "penny-dreadful" as some fictions suggest; perhaps the mystery of human existence needs to be solved with fictions like love, kindness, hope, and belief in a better life.