Mr. Holmes (2015) [Blu-ray]
Drama | Mystery

The story is actually set in 1947, following a long-retired Holmes living in a Sussex village with his housekeeper and rising detective son. But then he finds himself haunted by an unsolved 50-year old case. Holmes memory isn't what it used to be, so he only remembers fragments of the case: a confrontation with an angry husband, a secret bond with his beautiful but unstable wife.

An aged, retired Sherlock Holmes, deals with early dementia, as he tries to remember his final case and a woman, the memory of whom still haunts him. He also befriends a fan, the young son of his housekeeper, who wants him to work again.

Storyline: The story is set in 1947, following a long-retired Holmes living in a Sussex village with his housekeeper and rising detective son. But then he finds himself haunted by an unsolved 30-year old case. Holmes memory isn't what it used to be, so he only remembers fragments of the case: a confrontation with an angry husband, a secret bond with his beautiful but unstable wife. Written by Anonymous

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, October 29, 2015 -- There's Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Collection and Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Series, but also Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes (not to mention Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows). But in the time honored tradition of infomercials, "wait—you also get" Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Jr. and Sherlock: The Complete Seasons 1-3. Add to that list Without a Clue, Young Sherlock Holmes and Elementary, while also realizing that even with all of these entries, the list of film and television properties at least tangentially related to Arthur Conan Doyle's immortal detective would be woefully incomplete. Into the fray now steps the elegiac Mr. Holmes, a film which imagines the sleuth having lived to the ripe old age of 93 where, in 1947, he is dealing with the infirmities of old age, including a failing memory. A series of nesting flashbacks explores a bit of Holmes' recent and further removed history, while a "contemporary" (i.e., 1947) story unfolds detailing Holmes' relationships with his housekeeper and her young son.

The very name Sherlock Holmes conjures visions of complex mysteries, though truth be told, those who have actually read at least some of Arthur Conan Doyle's original works (and/or seen their adaptations in the Jeremy Brett series) might be willing to admit (under duress) that some of the conundra Holmes tackles are not exactly mind boggling. While there is a mystery of sorts playing out within Mr. Holmes, this is much more of a character piece, and in fact it plays at least somewhat similarly to director Bill Condon's other reimagining of "history" (whether real or fictional) with Ian McKellen, Gods and Monsters. There's a no doubt intentional disconnect between the audience's built in preconception of a dashing, intellectually acute Holmes and the aged and occasionally doddering man McKellen provides in the film, and that aspect, while fascinating, may throw some Holmes purists for at least a temporary loop.

Holmes, hunched over and covered with liver spots, has made his home in a rustic chateau in Sussex, where he's looked after by the no nonsense Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney), a war widow who is caring for her precocious young son Roger (Milo Parker). Perhaps surprisingly considering Holmes' reputation for prickliness, he actually seems to be rather fond of the little boy, and Roger has obviously come under the sway of Holmes' still (at least occasionally) astute intellectual proclivities, as evidenced by Roger's corrections of his mother's bad grammar. What really interests Roger, though, are Holmes' apiary as well as a story that Holmes is writing, evidently in hopes of providing a more accurate rendition of his last case than a certain Dr. John Watson offered many years previously.

A perhaps slightly perplexing set of flashbacks slowly reveals two different plot strands which the screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher (adapting Mitch Cullin's novel A Slight Trick of the Mind) struggles a bit to organically weave into a coherent whole. The more recent set of flashbacks details a relatively recent trip by Holmes to Japan, still reeling from the horrific atomic bomb attacks. Holmes is ostensibly there to retrieve a folk remedy which will supposedly help with Holmes' increasing signs of forgetfulness if not outright dementia. A solicitous Japanese man named Tamiki Umezaki (Hiroyuki Sanada) is there to help Holmes find the herb, but (of course) he has an ulterior motive for sidling up to the famed detective.

The second set of flashbacks journeys back to the wake of the previous World War, as Holmes attempts to solve the case of a distraught husband named Thomas Kelmot (Patrick Kennedy), who is attempting to figure out why his wife Ann (Hattie Morahan) is behaving so strangely, though the fact that the woman has had two recent miscarriages may figure into it. Kelmot is convinced his spouse has come under the mesmeric spell of a woman who gives lessons on a glass harmonica (one of the film's more outré plot points), but the actual "solution" to this supposed mystery is perhaps somewhat more mundane, if no less affecting.

The set of more recent flashbacks play out as traditional looks back to a slightly prior time, but the flashbacks dealing with the depressed wife are treated as part of a certain revisionism on the part of Holmes, who is writing his own account of the case since he has been unhappy with Watson's version. That version offers Mr. Holmes the chance to wink at the ubiquity of various Holmes cinema adaptations, and there's a bit of an in joke with regard to the casting in the movie of this supposed "final case" that the "real" Holmes sees (check out cast listings for the actor portraying "Matinee Sherlock" in the film, and then do some sleuthing of your own about that particular actor).

The two flashbacks play out interstitially as the story of Holmes, Mrs. Munro and little Roger unfolds contemporaneously, and perhaps unexpectedly, it's in this "present day" scenario that Mr. Holmes really finds its most resonant emotional content. Holmes' love of bees plays into a somewhat florid development in the late going, one that casts a needlessly melodramatic pall on what is otherwise a fairly staid if involving presentation. The film is an actor's paradise, and McKellen is absolutely superb as Holmes in two (and really, three) different time periods. Linney is understated but quite wry as the put upon housekeeper, and little Parker is quite winning as Roger, a kid unabashedly in hero worship mode every time Sherlock is nearby.

Mr. Holmes occasionally winks at its subject in much the same joking manner as Without a Clue, but it's also a curiously distant feeling film at times, something that's perhaps perfectly in tune with its depiction of an aged character slowly losing touch with his faculties. McKellen is a marvel as Holmes, and the supporting cast is superb. The film is handsomely mounted and very well paced by Condon, who is able to navigate the hurdles of the flashback format without any major problems. Technical merits are first rate, and Mr. Holmes comes Recommended.

[CSW] -3.1- This film portrays a brilliant man who all his life proceeded in the unshakeable conviction that facts alone comprised human reality and by themselves controlled events. Now very old, his career ended long ago, living in self-imposed exile with his mind slipping away, he struggles to understand his greatest failure. Despite his failing memory, his relationships with a precocious young boy, his housekeeper, a Japanese son trying to love his unknown father, a dead Watson, and the young woman whose death 35 years earlier expressed motivation and choice contrary to his rational expectations, lead him to conclude that data alone cannot explain -- they do not suffice.
[V4.5-A4.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.


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