Film Discussion: Mr. Holmes

September 8, 2015
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Tomorrow, we have a small treat in store. Ian McKellen is playing Sherlock Holmes in the charming Mr. Holmes at The Music Hall.

I have a fairly unusual privilege in writing about this movie because I’ve actually seen it, and that gives me more to work with than I usually have. And I can say that Mr. Holmes (and Mr. McKellen) will repay you well for your time.

The story puts an aged Sherlock in a British coastal town after WWII, worried about losing his faculties and dogged by memories of cases left unsolved. Everyone he knows is dead and gone, and he is more than a little cranky.

Fortunately, this being a movie, Holmes has a housekeeper with a bright and energetic son who is fascinated by this old wreck and the stories he’s heard about him. And he and his mother (played by Laura Linney as a woman with troubles of her own) try to support the still formidable old man, who still has a few tricks up his sleeve.

There aren’t a lot of big surprises in Mr. Holmes. The pleasure comes from the expert telling, the lovely, layered performance by Ian McKellen and the assured style of veteran director Bill Condon, who has been down a parallel path with McKellen in Gods and Monsters (in 1999). And the apprentice story is exceedingly well told, too. The movie never aims at knocking your socks off, but it gets up a nice head of steam and leads to an emotionally (and logically) satisfying conclusion.

I’m looking forward to a chance to see the movie again, to catch some of the grace notes and flourishes that McKellen provides. I hope to see you there.

And don’t forget that next week (The week of Telluride by the Sea, oh boy! oh boy!) we will finish our stretch of four discussions in a row with The End of the Tour, a fictionalized account of a real interview between author David Foster Wallace and a Rolling Stone journalist. If you know and idolize Wallace as I do, you’ll want to be there. And, if not, you might want to come and see what all the Wallace fuss is about.

See you tomorrow (Tuesday, September 8) at The Historic Theater.

Paul Goodwin
TMHMG