Directed by Bill Condon (Chicago, Dreamgirls, The Fifth Estate, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn) and starring Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings, Richard III, The Hobbit, The Prisoner, The Da Vinci Code, X-Men: The Last Stand), Laura Linney (Kinsey, The Savages, The Squid and the Whale, The Truman Show, Mystic River, The Fifth Estate) and Milo Parker (Robot Overlords).
Detective Drama; 104 mins; 6+
An aeging Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellen) in his twilight years returns home in 1947 to his cottage on the south England coast having returned from a visit to Japan. His body is frail and his memory is fading. His housekeeper, Mrs Munro (Laura Linney), and her son Roger (Milo Parker) are the other main characters, with all three delivering masterful performances as their characters develop over the course of the film; despite this, Ian McKellen definitely steals the show for his mannerisms and foibles of Holmes, the detective and the man.
The director uses a series of flashbacks as Holmes remembers bit by bit his last case 30 years beforehand as he struggles to write its story. Up to then it had just been Dr Watson who had been the writer, but he had passed away in the meantime.
Holmes' eye for detail is still as sharp as ever and he never misses a trick; his passion for bee-keeping is central to the story, as Roger starts to look after the hives in the garden. The patching together of the various threads of his last case is done in a very melancholic way. Homour is used sparingly, and when it is, very subtly indeed.
One for aficionados of Sherlock Holmes, the greatest ever detective.
