mr holmes

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3168230

mr holmes is not your standard sherlock holmes movie, though in some sense there is not a sherlock holmes movie which is truer to the facts...such as they are, what with sherlock holmes being a fictional character and all.  rather, it is a mournful elegy that seeks to set the record straight, much in the same way that mr holmes himself seeks to set his own record straight.

when they made a movie about james bond getting old (skyfall,) it came off as contrived--after all, james bond is not supposed to get old, and nothing about what he was doing was really all that different from what he was doing when he was young, namely, drinking, whoring, and getting shot at.  bit like a normal friday night around my flat, knowwhatimean, knowwhatimean?  ian mckellen, on the other hand, played a sherlock holmes who actually got old.  it was heartbreaking, but also satisfying, in its own way.

the story was beautifully told, a weave of four stories into one.  it was a bit slow, but i think it had to be.  you cannot tell a story about getting old with shaky cam and twitch cuts.  or you could, it is just that you are going to get savaged by the reviewers, and then maybe your house will accidentally burn down.  so just relax, take in all that scenery, and check the batteries in your smoke detectors.

mr holmes gets four sansho cuttings.