MOVIE REVIEW | Mr Holmes (2015)

“Because when you’re a detective, and a man comes to see you, it’s usually about his wife.”

In the last few years, we’ve had two blockbuster Sherlock Holmes / Robert Downey Jr movies, the BBC series starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and the US series with Johnny Lee Miller as the legendary detective. Add to that the century or so of adaptations, reimaginings and rip offs, and we should all well and truly be suffering from severe Sherlock Holmes fatigue. But I guess it’s a sign of what a compelling , timeless character he is, that when I heard about Mr Holmes, I knew I’d be seeing it sooner rather than later.

It’s the mid 20^th century, and a 90 odd year old Holmes (Ian McKellen) has been retired for a couple of decades. With the early signs dementia, he returns to his English countryside farmhouse from Japan, where he’s been trying local remedies to help his failing mind. Realising that his memories are getting less and less reliable, Holmes decides it’s time to finally write his own version of events, to counter the fictionalised versions written by his friend John Watson years earlier. Specifically, he wants to write about his last case, which he tackled 20 years ago.

MOVIE REVIEW | ***A.V WEEK 2*** They Might be Giants (1971)

“He thought that every windmill was a giant. That’s insane. But, thinking that they might be, well… All the best minds used to think the world was flat. But what if it isn’t? It might be round.”

Sometimes there’s a movie that’s hard to define. What genre does it fall in? What other movies can you compare it to? Sometimes there’s a movie that makes it hard to justify why you did, or didn’t like it. Well, here’s a movie that I have no idea what genre it falls under. Here’s a movie that I definitely liked, a lot. Here’s a movie that I will attempt to articulate why I liked it, but I make no promises that I’ll be able to. Here’s They Might Be Giants.

George C Scott is Justin Playfair, a widowed millionaire who deals with the grief of losing his wife by descending into denial and becoming Sherlock Holmes. How much is an act? How much is insanity? No one really knows. But his brother (Lester Rawlins as Blevins) does know one thing, if he can have Justin committed to an institution, he can get power of attorney, and Justin’s fortune. Enter Mildred as Dr… Wait for it… Watson. A legit psychologist, her coincidental name is enough for Justin to bring her into his delusional world.