Review of Mr. Holmes (2015) by Steff W — 24 Jul 2015

I have no choice but to wax rhapsodic about "Mr. Holmes." It delights visually and musically, charming with details as intimate as a desk drawer and expansive as the gleaming white Cliffs of Dover. But what sets the film apart is where it dares to explore. It's no spoiler to reveal that its narrative is almost entirely from the point of view of a very elderly, very vulnerable Sherlock Holmes.

Even at a glance its movie poster demonstrates there is strength still even in the frailty of advancing age. But this Mr. Holmes is also keenly aware, even as awareness itself seems to fail him, that he is at a crossroads both in history and within himself. Sir Ian McKellen here redefines the detective, transforming him (with the aid of all too realistic makeup) not only through age but with experience into more than a few, very different, distinct incarnations of the same character. What all these performances within one have in common is a sleuth who must deduce secrets he has kept even from himself. Sherlock confronts within a villian whose crime is no less one of the heart for its lack of passion. It is a stunning portrait of intellect becoming wisdom, of truth tempered by what is truly held most dear.

It must be said that it is "Mr. Holmes" writing (by Mitch Cullin and Jeffrey Hatcher) that has given McKellen and all its fine actors (Milo Parker, Laura Linney, & Hiroyuki Sanada) such substance to work with.

It is the very stuff 'that dreams are made on' and it works as the human mind itself does. Living as much in memory and on assumption as it does in the present moment, each informing regret and guiding desire carrying the other forward through actual time.

This, very much as the director, Bill Condon, has skillfully guided "Mr. Holmes." It is all their gifts that has given us a mystery most satisfying to solve, revealing and reveling in one's own heart and heart's own.