Mr. Holmes

Ian McKellan plays craggy, cranky Sherlock Holmes, as the 93 year-old British detective attempts not only to solve his last case but also to separate fact from fiction about his life. Retired to the southeast coast of England, Holmes lives in a small cottage with housekeeper Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney) and her curious, precocious son, Roger (Milo Parker), who helps tend Holmes' beloved beehives. Ruminative Holmes realizes that his memory is failing—along with his powers of deduction—and to remedy that he's experimenting with royal jelly and prickly ash, a rare Japanese herb with rejuvenating qualities. Holmes is struggling to recall the details of a case involving his relationship with a melancholy married woman (Hattie Morahan), revealed in flashbacks to postwar London and bombed-out Hiroshima. Burdened by his celebrity, Holmes is also irked by the way his colleague Dr. John Watson not only exaggerated but also even fabricated details in the stories that made him famous (Holmes maintains that he actually prefers a cigar to a pipe and never wore a deerstalker cap). Adapted from Mitch Cullin's 2005 novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, director Bill Condon's Mr. Holmes features a wonderfully complex performance by McKellen as Arthur Conan Doyle's fictitious sleuth, whose exploits remain timelessly popular. Recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include an “Icon” character featurette (3 min.), a story segment (3 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release is a bonus UltraViolet copy of the film. Bottom line: a small extras package for a winning film featuring a nonagenarian Holmes.] (S. Granger)