Mr Holmes

[kevinknapman]

Went to see this earlier and loved it much more than I was expecting to.

A beautiful and moving story with an outstanding performance from Ian McKellen as an old and melancholy Sherlock Holmes. A man whose touching friendship with his housekeeper's son intertwines with his attempts to recall his final case, the details of which he struggles to remember as his memory begins to fail.

Luckily this isn't just the Ian McKellen show as he's supported by a very strong cast. Laura Linney is very good as his housekeeper with Milo Parker impressive as her son (very good in Robot Overlords, even better here).
Also good as the woman who haunts his fractured memory is Hattie Morahan and several ever-dependable character actors like Phil Davies (all too briefly), Roger Allam, Frances Barber, John Sessions and Frances De La Tour round out the cast.
In one particularly nice piece of casting, when Holmes goes to a cinema to watch a film based on John Watson's book of one of his cases he is played by Nicholas Rowe, probably best known for playing Young Sherlock Holmes 30 years (?!?) ago.
Slow moving perhaps (those used to the TV show and the Guy Ritchie films may find it a little too sedate) but engrossing, it tackles the Holmes character from a fresh and interesting perspective.

Due to the presence of Ian McKellen, think of it as a companion piece of sorts to director Bill Condon's Gods & Monsters and preferably not as a film from the director of the last two Twilight films and the ropy Julian Assange film The Fifth Estate.

Highly recommended.

[raj101]

good movie, good performances, anything with McKellen rocks, I think.

man, people going in expecting an episode of "sherlock" - come on!!

I was kinda expecting something different too - I thought we were going to discover that Holmes was just an identity that an old guy with amnesia had adopted (one of my short stories I wrote at school) sadly no, so no impending lawsuit from me for abject plagiary. YEHman.