MR HOLMES - review

MR HOLMES

Director: Bill Condon

Cast: Ian McKellan, Laura Linney, Milo Parker

Disclaimer: If you know anyone suffering from Alzheimer's then this film is probably going to get you right in the feels. 

The mysterious, marvelous, incredulous Detective Holmes is once more gracing our screens. Now, I don't know about you, but I do love the story of this super sleuth in all its forms. Not so much a fan of some of the tv spin offs, but the classic Holmes stories have an uncanny ability to keep me enthralled. When I heard that one of my all time favourites was going to be bringing Holmes to life on the big screen I couldn't wait. I mean is there nothing this man can't do? Gandalf, Magneto, King Lear, Emile, all of the narrators, and the list goes on. Sir Ian McKellan is one of the true greats, and his performance in MR HOLMES does not disappoint, it's just a shame that the story isn't as good as his performance. 

This version of the Holmes story, is set in postwar Britain, in Sussex, where the famous detective, now 93 and retired, lives in seclusion with his housekeeper (Laura Linney) and her son (Milo Parker).  He is grappling with a case from 30 years ago, but his memory is failing him and the pieces of the story come to him in fragments. He forms a bond with his housekeepers son Roger, who helps him tend to his bees and with Rogers' help he slowly puts together the story of the case that he ended his career over. 

Holmes and Roger

image via Transmission Films

Bill Condon has done something extraordinary with this piece of work - he made it kind of suck. He is not entirely to blame, the script is all over the place, and there is so much back and forwardsing going on that there isn't enough time to get wrapped up in any of them. Present day where Holmes is keeping bees, and befirneding Roger and trying to work out what happened 30 years ago, a trip to Japan where Holmes travels to get some prickly ash to aid his failing memory and where he witnesses the horror of the Hiroshima bombing, and 1919 where the case began that Holmes is trying to solve. As soon as we get used to being in one time and location and used to one set of characters, we are quickly whisked off to another place and time. 

Holmes and Mrs Munro

image via Transmission Films

The entire cast of this film is magnificent, but requires them to be little more than bit part actors, particularly in the case of Laura Linney who hardly does anything other than walk in and out of rooms with a concerned look and some exclamation of disdain for her sons relationship with Holmes of for Holmes' declining mental state. It was a real shame to see such talented actors wasted. Even McKellan who played his part wonderfully suffers at the hand of this poorly scripted film. The timing is strangely off kilter for the whole film and the disjointed nature makes it difficult to get fully involved because you're too busy trying to keep up with where we're at. I'm not saying I could have written something better, if I could I would surely be an accomplished playwright instead of a business manager, but the script needed some editing of the flow to bring it to its full potential. 

McKellan's portrayal of a once brilliant man struggling with the very painful reality of losing mental faculties is moving, if at times a little unsettling. Anyone who has watched someone suffer through Alzheimer's will probably get hit right in the feels. McKellan does a stellar job of flying through the range of emotions displayed by other sufferers. Anger, frustration, sadness, helplessness, hopelessness and everything in between. It is isolating and infuriating, and both Linney and Parker give performances of the very real responses of those living with someone living with the disease. 

93 year old Holmes trying to remember the case from 30 years ago

63 year old Holmes working the case he can't remember in his old age

images via Transmission Films

Overall, MR HOLMES is a visually lovely film to watch, and the actors have done a wonderful job with what they had. McKellan's performance is stellar and had the film been slightly better written I think that McKellan could have been generating some Oscar's buzz. Sadly I'm not sure it's going to end up that way, but I will happily stand corrected if it happens when the time comes. If you like something off the beaten path in terms of mainstream film then you might very well enjoy this lovely little piece of cinema. I'm not sure I would recommend you pay 20-something dollars to see it at the cinema, but it is certainly worth checking out if you get a chance. 

3 out of 5

xoxo

The Blonde Bombshell