MR. HOLMES
***1/2 (out of four)
DIRECTED BY Bill Condon
STARS Ian McKellen, Laura Linney
Being thoroughly unfamiliar with Mitch Cullen's 2005 novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, I approached its film adaptation, Mr. Holmes, expecting to see a slight and sprightly murder-mystery in which a retired Sherlock Holmes noodles about the countryside solving a crime at his own leisurely pace — a modern-day companion, perhaps, to those delightful Miss Marple films from the 1960s that starred the incomparable Margaret Rutherford as Agatha Christie's elderly sleuth. But this film proves to be something else entirely.
Ian McKellen, reteaming with Gods and Monsters writer-director Bill Condon, stars as the 93-year-old Holmes, residing in the countryside with his housekeeper Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney) and her bright young son Roger (Milo Parker). Approximately three decades earlier, Holmes had retired — actually, more like fled — from the detective business, shaken by the specifics of his final case. As always, Dr. Watson had embellished the real-life circumstances for his printed pieces, with Holmes solving the case in satisfactory fashion, but Holmes now wants to write his own truthful version of how the investigation went down. Unfortunately for him, his memory continues to fail at an alarming rate, and it's only through his discussions with the adoring Roger that he's able to recall all the specifics (seen in ample flashbacks).
Condon, who won an Oscar for adapting Gods and Monsters, only occupies the director's chair for Mr. Holmes, leaving the scripting to Jeffrey Fletcher (whose credits include the underrated period piece The Duchess, starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes). The storyline is admirably multitentacled, centering not only on the mystery that refuses to remain in the past but also on Holmes' affection for bees, Mrs. Munro's unsteady relationship with her employer, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the ethereal influence of the glass harmonica, the specter of soul-crushing loneliness and, most importantly, the debilitating effects of dementia. Much might seem superfluous in the early going, but everything is ultimately woven together into a rich tapestry that honors the Arthur Conan Doyle legacy as much as the engrossing BBC series starring Benedict Cumberbatch — and certainly more than those daft action romps featuring Robert Downey Jr. as Indiana Holmes.
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