Movie: Mr. Holmes

Mr. Holmes:  the year is 1947 and Sherlock is retired.  In this very enjoyable film, Sherlock is 93 and living in an unspecified location on the English coast.  Ian McKellen, who is 76, gives a superb performance of a Sherlock whose memories are fading.  Dr. Watson and Sherlock’s brother, Mycroft, are deceased and Sherlock has been retired for 30 years.  He has a housekeeper, Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney), who has a young son named Roger (Milo Parker); the husband/father perished in WWII.  Mrs. Munro is protective and provincial, but not so the son.  Roger has read the stories of Sherlock Holmes, as penned by Dr. Watson, and talks with Sherlock about the memoir Sherlock is writing concerning his last client.  It seems Dr. Watson didn’t get this story quite right.  Much of this 104 minute movie deals with Sherlock slowly remembering what had occurred 30 years ago.  The case involved a married woman (Hattie Morhan) whose husband saw her as overly brooding about her two miscarriages.  I don’t want to say much more as the plot line regarding the woman is not obvious.  There is also a flashback sequence involving Holmes traveling to Japan shortly after WWII to meet with an herbalist (Hiroyuki Sanada) who lives near Hiroshima.  Holmes makes the long trip because he believes the herbalist may have discovered a plant that will stop memory loss.  Fundamentally, the story deals with aging and longevity, and one’s unwillingness to admit to and accept its consequences.  Interspersed among the storylines is the friendship that grows between Sherlock and Roger.  It is their relationship that imbues the film its special flair.  The movie, based on a novel by Mitch Cullin, is directed by Bill Condon.  On the 70^th anniversary of the devastation of Hiroshima, there is a touching scene where Holmes, while in Japan, watches a group of Hiroshima survivors create a ring of stones, which serve as a place to recall loved ones.  The film ends with Holmes creating his own ring of stones.