Mr Holmes (2015)
Director: Bill Condon.
Synopsis
The famous Private Detective Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellan) is 93 and retired. He lives a quiet and reclusive life in his Sussex farmhouse, tending to bees and looked after by his housekeeper (Laura Linney) and her inquisitive young son (Milo Parker). Finding it increasingly difficult to remember simple things like names, his mind is troubled by recollections of his last case, his most important yet he cannot recall why. He takes a journey through the country of his once great mind, aided by clues and flashbacks along the way.
Review
As 'senile cinema' is all of the rage at the moment, following Julianne Moore's Best Actress Oscar win with Still Alice and Dementiaville on TV, it was a propitious moment to adapt the story A Slight Trick Of the Mind, which neatly welds together old age and the Sherlock Holmes legend, for the big screen.
Perhaps the big screen was too large a canvas to tell this story on however; for the most part, it has the shuffling pace of a nonagenarian dawdling to open the front door and the slow pace rarely lets up. It does, however, let director Condon concentrate on the real focus of the story: picking up the mental breadcrumbs of a disintegrating mind as Holmes struggles to recollect the importance of his last ever case.
However, it also has a masterly, cunning and witty lead performance from McKellan, who deploys a full battery of theatrical and cinematic tics to fully persuade you Holmes is nearing his centenary.
For full review: http://ow.ly/OyZ25
For listings of films at CineWorldMK: http://www2.cineworld.co.uk/cinemas/milton-keynes
Cast & credits
Producer: Iain Canning, Anne Carey, Emile Sherman. Writer: Jeffrey Hatcher. Camera: Tobias A. Schliessler. Music: Carter Burwell. Sets: Martin Childs.
Ian McKellan, Laura Linney, Milo Parker, Hiroyuki Sanada, Hattie Morahan, Patrick Kennedy, Roger Allam, Frances De La Tour, John Sessions, Philip Davis, Sarah Crowden, Nicholas Rowe.
