I was able to view this on DVD from my public library. The movie contains lots of great English countryside scenery and it is reproduced very nicely.
The movie is set in two primary periods. In its "present" time it is 1947, not long after the war, and 75-ish Ian McKellen has on a bit of aging makeup to make him look 93 as a retired Sherlock Holmes. He lives in his country home with a 50-ish housekeeper who had lost her husband in the recent war. That role has Laura Linney using a subtle lower educated Irish or English woman accent, Mrs. Munro. Her bright and precocious son Roger, played by Milo Parker about 10 or 11.
Holmes is losing his memory, early symptoms of dementia. In the storyline his old associate John Watson had written the Sherlock Holmes stories, that were turned into movies also, and the real Holmes tells us that they were all fiction. In his final days he wants to write his own Sherlock Holmes book based on his last case almost 30 years earlier, and he has difficulty remembering some of the critical details.
So some of the movie is a flashback to that time earlier, right after WW 1, maybe 1919 or the early 1920s when horse-drawn carriages were still common in the streets of London. A man has asked Holmes to follow his wife as she was acting suspiciously, and what he finds is quite a surprise.
But the main story is clearly about Holmes in the later period, 1947 and 1948 as he is approaching the end. There is an interesting dynamic with his housekeeper and even more so with the boy, as Holmes teaches him the finer arts of beekeeping.
This is just a good story and well-acted. I enjoyed it.
The movie is set in two primary periods. In its "present" time it is 1947, not long after the war, and 75-ish Ian McKellen has on a bit of aging makeup to make him look 93 as a retired Sherlock Holmes. He lives in his country home with a 50-ish housekeeper who had lost her husband in the recent war. That role has Laura Linney using a subtle lower educated Irish or English woman accent, Mrs. Munro. Her bright and precocious son Roger, played by Milo Parker about 10 or 11.
Holmes is losing his memory, early symptoms of dementia. In the storyline his old associate John Watson had written the Sherlock Holmes stories, that were turned into movies also, and the real Holmes tells us that they were all fiction. In his final days he wants to write his own Sherlock Holmes book based on his last case almost 30 years earlier, and he has difficulty remembering some of the critical details.
So some of the movie is a flashback to that time earlier, right after WW 1, maybe 1919 or the early 1920s when horse-drawn carriages were still common in the streets of London. A man has asked Holmes to follow his wife as she was acting suspiciously, and what he finds is quite a surprise.
But the main story is clearly about Holmes in the later period, 1947 and 1948 as he is approaching the end. There is an interesting dynamic with his housekeeper and even more so with the boy, as Holmes teaches him the finer arts of beekeeping.
This is just a good story and well-acted. I enjoyed it.