Mr. Holmes
Michael Chabon's The Final Solution (2004) and Mitch Cullin's A Slight Trick of the Mind (2005) are strikingly similar novels, although it's not clear if the former influenced the latter: they're both about an ancient Sherlock Holmes, suffering from both physical and mental deterioration, who struggles with a case (or, in Cullin's novel, cases) against the background of WWII. Like Michael Dibdin's much earlier (and wryly mis-titled) The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, they're also about the making of "Holmes"--the cult figure of the great detective. In Chabon's tale, Holmes is never named, but the novel slyly foregrounds all the signifiers that say "Holmes" (for example, his magnifying glass). In Cullin's more complicated narrative, Holmes himself is forced to contemplate not only the tension between fact and fiction, but also the extent to which fiction, the only source of true closure, may become necessary--and the extent to which Holmesian logic may prove useless when faced with great trauma, including death (a point also made in Chabon's story).
Mr. Holmes, Bill Condon's adaptation of A Slight Trick of the Mind, maintains the novel's tripartite structure of cases, two in the past and one in the present, as well as the novel's key conceit, in which Holmes tries to assert himself against Watson's fictionalized version by writing up his last "adventure." The Umezaki case gets relatively short shrift, as does the subplot about post-WWII Japan, and there's no sign of Mr. Umezaki's boyfriend; the solution to this case remains the same, but its location in the plot undergoes a significant change (of which more below the fold). In general, Condon is more revisionist here than he was with Gods and Monsters. One of the most drastic alterations, in fact, is the backstory to Holmes' narrative. In the novel, Holmes is driven to write up the Ann Keller (Kelmot in the film) case before he dies as a generalized riposte to Watson's storytelling approach, although he has already conceded to Watson that he understands why Watson wrote the stories as he did. In Mr. Holmes, the Ann Kelmot case is part of Watson's published canon ("The Adventure of the Lady in Grey"), which has even been turned into a Basil Rathbone-style adaptation. As the film eventually reveals, Watson rewrote the case as a success in order to maintain the fiction of Holmes as a "hero," but also as an attempt to comfort Holmes for his failure--thereby inadvertently destroying their relationship. (In the novel, they grow apart naturally after Watson's final marriage, but it's made clear that Holmes still loves him deeply.) The difficulty for Film!Holmes, however, is that as his memory degrades, he can remember the case only in fits and starts, so that he spends much of the film attempting to grasp how the case failed. What, in other words, was his motive for retiring to his bees? And what does it mean for Holmes' understanding of his own identity if he cannot remember his own story?
I'm about to traipse into the world of major spoilers (both film and novel), so head below the fold for more.
The
Mr. Holmes, Bill Condon's adaptation of A Slight Trick of the Mind, maintains the novel's tripartite structure of cases, two in the past and one in the present, as well as the novel's key conceit, in which Holmes tries to assert himself against Watson's fictionalized version by writing up his last "adventure." The Umezaki case gets relatively short shrift, as does the subplot about post-WWII Japan, and there's no sign of Mr. Umezaki's boyfriend; the solution to this case remains the same, but its location in the plot undergoes a significant change (of which more below the fold). In general, Condon is more revisionist here than he was with Gods and Monsters. One of the most drastic alterations, in fact, is the backstory to Holmes' narrative. In the novel, Holmes is driven to write up the Ann Keller (Kelmot in the film) case before he dies as a generalized riposte to Watson's storytelling approach, although he has already conceded to Watson that he understands why Watson wrote the stories as he did. In Mr. Holmes, the Ann Kelmot case is part of Watson's published canon ("The Adventure of the Lady in Grey"), which has even been turned into a Basil Rathbone-style adaptation. As the film eventually reveals, Watson rewrote the case as a success in order to maintain the fiction of Holmes as a "hero," but also as an attempt to comfort Holmes for his failure--thereby inadvertently destroying their relationship. (In the novel, they grow apart naturally after Watson's final marriage, but it's made clear that Holmes still loves him deeply.) The difficulty for Film!Holmes, however, is that as his memory degrades, he can remember the case only in fits and starts, so that he spends much of the film attempting to grasp how the case failed. What, in other words, was his motive for retiring to his bees? And what does it mean for Holmes' understanding of his own identity if he cannot remember his own story?
I'm about to traipse into the world of major spoilers (both film and novel), so head below the fold for more.
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In A Slight Trick of the Mind, all three cases and their narrative solutions hinge on the inadequacy of logic to handle both the trauma and the mystery of death, loss, and, above all, aloneness. Holmes figures out what's going on with the Ann Keller case, but doing so does not prevent her from committing suicide; although he clearly felt attracted to her in some measure, he is left most deeply haunted by the fact that there was no connection between them, and the tragedy of both the case and his career is that he emerges from it conscious, for the first time, that he is completely solitary. (Unfortunately, my book is on the other side of the Atlantic, or I'd quote directly.) This is where the novel concludes: in writing "against" Watson, Holmes does not achieve some kind of comfortable closure, but rather finally comes face-to-face with the inadequacy of his own solution to mystery. By contrast, at the end of his stay in Japan, Holmes realizes that while he probably did meet Mr. Umezaki's mysteriously disappeared father, he has for some reason got rid of Watson's relevant diary entry. The fiction he constructs for Mr. Umezaki answers precisely the emotional need that his own narrative does not; in a sense, it explains why "Sherlock Holmes," the cult figure created by Watson, became so successful. He provides Mr. Umezaki with a heroic image of his father, he produces closure, he offers moral and emotional satisfaction. The third case, however, Holmes solves perfectly--and that's Roger's death by wasp stings. But solving this case achieves nothing, other than saving the bees from destruction. There are no heroes and no villains, only wasps, and nobody finds the solution even remotely comforting. Roger's case itself reworks the various animal cases in the Holmes canon--Hound of the Baskervilles, "The Speckled Band," "Silver Blaze"--in which human evil prompts the dog, the snake, and the horse to kill. For Roger, though, there can be no real justice, as the wasps merely acted on instinct, and burning the wasps' nest, while it might feel good, does not constitute moral retribution for a crime. It's a story that cannot be plotted according to the norms of a Sherlock Holmes tale.
Here's where Mr. Holmes drastically alters the outcome of Cullin's novel. First, Ann not only recognizes Holmes at the end of the case, but also offers herself to him (not necessarily romantically); Holmes' inability to accept that offer constitutes his true failure and prompts her suicide. Offered a chance for mutual nurturing and community, then, Holmes chooses isolation. (He's more wasp than bee.) Writing the "true" story, as opposed to Watson's heroic version, thus enables him to achieve closure by finally recognizing his error. At the same time, in a symbolic moment at the film's end, Holmes writes up the fictional response to Mr. Umezaki's case at Watson's desk: this moment both retroactively endorses Watson's act (fiction as comfort) and, by repeating it, functions as a kind of posthumous apology. The tone here is far more chipper than in the novel, which represents the Umezaki "solution" as both an advance for Holmes (he comes to grips with the emotional aspects of narrative form) and as a failure (he is forced, in a sense, to retreat to his fictional self). Finally--and here's where the film tips straight over into sentimentality--Roger survives assault by wasps and the film ends with Holmes, housekeeper, and Roger all living happily together (for however long that's going to be, given that Holmes' mind and body are still clearly degenerating). If the film itself doesn't entirely take Watson's side--Holmes "wins" by learning to mourn, not by being detective-as-superman--it is certainly well on the road to doing so, insofar as it does what Watson did: it rewrites the original so that it has a feel-good ending.
Despite my severe reservations about the ending, the film is definitely worth seeing for Ian McKellen, who is a terrific, completely non-derivative Sherlock Holmes. He moves neatly between the sharp younger Holmes, dapper and hawklike, and the bleary-eyed older Holmes, bent and slovenly. He has strong chemistry with Milo Parker's Roger and clashes well with Laura Linney's Mrs. Munro, the housekeeper (a much bigger part here than in the novel). In general, this is a far more thoughtful take on the Holmes mythos than Sherlock, Elementary, or the recent steampunk-ish films.