Movie report: Sherlock Holmes (2009)
I’ve read every Sherlock Holmes novel and story, many of them several times over. I consider The Naval Treaty one of the best stories ever written. I’ve seen most of the movie and TV productions of the Holmes and Watson stories. I’ve even been to Baker Street (there really is no 221B, although the address still receives a large amount of mail each year) and Gillette Castle (home to William Gillette, an actor best known for his stage portrayals of Sherlock Holmes). So, yes, I’m a bit of a Sherlock Holmes fan. And, frankly, when I heard that a new Holmes movie was in the works, and starring Robert Downey Jr. no less, I was apprehensive.
My apprehensions are at an end. The new Sherlock Holmes movie is delightful. They have done an amazing job of creating a new Holmes adventure that is true to the Victorian period and to Conan Doyle’s writing. Too often, movie and TV productions are on the order of “Let’s see, Sherlock Holmes, smart guy, okay, film!” The people who put this new movie together dug deep into the Holmes stories to put interesting details on the screen, which I’ll discuss shortly.
First, let’s talk about Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes. Some have characterized this movie as turning Sherlock Holmes into a superhero. I would say that’s accurate in this sense: one trend in modern superhero stories is to reveal what it would be like to really be that superhero. This movie does that for Sherlock Holmes. Think about this: here is a man who notices incredible (but not superhuman, as Holmes the character was based on an actual person) amounts of detail and immediately forms chains of conjecture about that detail. What would it be like to be that person?
The movie shows us very directly, using a clever technique that isolates an instant and expands it in time and space, with Holmes’s own internal narration of what he sees and what connections he makes to his observations. The result is both a practical lesson in what it is possible to discern from the world around us – and what we can reason from it – as well as an insight into Holmes’s mind.
In possibly the definitive scene of the movie, Holmes is waiting for Watson at a restaurant, and we get an inkling of what it would be like to be Sherlock Holmes in real life, in society, in the world. He notices every detail of every person in the room. His mind automatically begins constructing connections and theories about everything that is going on around him. This firehose of information he is receiving is overwhelming, and the geyser of his automatic reasoning is painful. For him, to be out in the world would be torture. No wonder Sherlock Holmes tends to be a recluse. No wonder he seeks abstruse problems as a distraction. And no wonder he lets a little too much of his discernment slip out when he meets Watson’s fiancée at dinner.
We believe Downey as Holmes the observer, Holmes the reasoner, and Holmes the social pariah. What about Holmes the man of action? Was he really a martial arts expert? I think it’s a perfectly reasonable abstraction from the stories, although not one you often see on stage or screen. The screen Holmeses tend to be curled up in their Baker Street rooms cogitating. However, the stories make it clear that Holmes was a man of action. In fact, Holmes himself makes the distinction (in The Greek Interpreter) between his own style of active investigation and his brother Mycroft’s, who never stirs from his chair in the Diogenes Club. In the stories, we hear about Holmes’s prowess with fencing and baritsu. We even hear about Holmes besting much larger and stronger men in fist-fights (The Speckled Band, The Sign of Four), although that kind of thing always occurs off-stage, probably due to Doyle’s Victorian sensibilities about what gentlemen ought and ought not to do in public. Combine Holmes’s powers of observation and reasoning with skill in fighting and, yes, you have a very capable man of action.
One of my concerns was that this Holmes would be too bohemian, too dissolute and debauched a character, more Oscar Wilde than Conan Doyle. But they didn’t go this route at all. For example, they never mention his cocaine habit, despite the nearly irresistible temptation of having Downey (who has had his difficulties with drugs) in the role. Neither does Holmes drink to excess or have sexual encounters of any kind.
When it comes to plot, they have done a superb job in creating a worthy adversary for Holmes. To turn once again to the superhero analogy, it’s important to select the right villain for the hero. For example, Batman stands for order and justice, so his ideal villain is someone like the Joker, who spreads chaos and disorder. For Holmes the ideal reasoner, there is Lord Blackwood, who displays apparent supernatural powers of evil. Blackwood is part of a coven steeped in mystic rites. He is actually executed for his part in the sacrifice of innocent victims, but apparently rises from the dead to provoke the spread of panic and dread of his powers in the populace. This is based on very real occurrences of the time. The Victorians, so modern in science and technology, were also ardent spiritualists and devotees of the mystic. It would not take much to push such a country into anarchy. (Lest we judge them too harshly, in our own time, a single envelope of white powder can cause an anthrax panic.) Can Holmes penetrate Lord Blackwood’s veil and defeat his nefarious schemes? It is reason vs. supernatural, with the world at stake.
What makes this more fascinating is that Holmes’s own abilities would have seemed magical or supernatural to people. In fact, the movie makes sly reference to this in a brief scene where Watson encounters a fortune teller, who uses some simple observations and astute guesses to seem truly clairvoyant – and Holmes-like.
As I mentioned, there are many details mined from the original stories. In the movie, Watson walks with a limp. Although this is never mentioned in the stories, it’s a plausible extension of the fact that Watson was wounded in the leg during his Army service in India. As the narrator of the adventures, Watson might gallantly forego mentioning his own disability. Also, in the movie, Watson seems to have a gambling problem. Again, while this is never mentioned in the stories, Watson’s knowledge of horse racing (Silver Blaze) is consistent with a bettor. And there is at least one mention of the fact that Holmes keeps Watson’s checkbook locked in his own desk, which would be consistent with battling a gambling addiction.
Irene Adler appears as the one woman who befuddles Holmes’s otherwise imperturbable faculties. In the stories, she’s one of the few adversaries to ever best Holmes. She is characterized as an impulsive and cunning adventuress. At the end of A Scandal in Bohemia, she is safely married to an ordinary lawyer and is leaving England “never to return”. However, it’s plausible to imagine that an adventuress might not stay married and out of England for long.
The movie is very funny at times, playing on the usual themes of Holmes vs. Watson, Holmes vs. the police, and Holmes vs. the world. In addition, the script is peppered with direct quotes from the stories, lifted from their original context but placed quite reasonably within the events of the movie. A purist would object to Watson’s being engaged to Miss Mary Morstan without Holmes ever having met the lady, because they were both introduced to her at the same time in The Sign of Four. But that is the only serious contradiction to the stories that I found. In the movie, it is simply part of the Watson-moving-out subplot.
The production itself is exquisite, evoking Victorian England in a million details large and small. I can’t imagine how they filmed some of the outdoor scenes, which seem to show whole factories, neighborhoods, rivers, and bridges, as they would have been in the late 1800s. Some of the technology seems slightly advanced for the time – including a primitive taser and a radio relay – but not enough for steampunk enthusiasts to get excited over.
I recommend this movie highly, both for Holmes fans and those who like a good Victorian adventure with plenty of humor. (By the way, since all the principal characters survive the story, and the specter of Professor Moriarty is looming in the background, there may well be a sequel.)
I’ve read every Sherlock Holmes novel and story, many of them several times over. I consider The Naval Treaty one of the best stories ever written. I’ve seen most of the movie and TV productions of the Holmes and Watson stories. I’ve even been to Baker Street (there really is no 221B, although the address still receives a large amount of mail each year) and Gillette Castle (home to William Gillette, an actor best known for his stage portrayals of Sherlock Holmes). So, yes, I’m a bit of a Sherlock Holmes fan. And, frankly, when I heard that a new Holmes movie was in the works, and starring Robert Downey Jr. no less, I was apprehensive.
My apprehensions are at an end. The new Sherlock Holmes movie is delightful. They have done an amazing job of creating a new Holmes adventure that is true to the Victorian period and to Conan Doyle’s writing. Too often, movie and TV productions are on the order of “Let’s see, Sherlock Holmes, smart guy, okay, film!” The people who put this new movie together dug deep into the Holmes stories to put interesting details on the screen, which I’ll discuss shortly.
First, let’s talk about Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes. Some have characterized this movie as turning Sherlock Holmes into a superhero. I would say that’s accurate in this sense: one trend in modern superhero stories is to reveal what it would be like to really be that superhero. This movie does that for Sherlock Holmes. Think about this: here is a man who notices incredible (but not superhuman, as Holmes the character was based on an actual person) amounts of detail and immediately forms chains of conjecture about that detail. What would it be like to be that person?
The movie shows us very directly, using a clever technique that isolates an instant and expands it in time and space, with Holmes’s own internal narration of what he sees and what connections he makes to his observations. The result is both a practical lesson in what it is possible to discern from the world around us – and what we can reason from it – as well as an insight into Holmes’s mind.
In possibly the definitive scene of the movie, Holmes is waiting for Watson at a restaurant, and we get an inkling of what it would be like to be Sherlock Holmes in real life, in society, in the world. He notices every detail of every person in the room. His mind automatically begins constructing connections and theories about everything that is going on around him. This firehose of information he is receiving is overwhelming, and the geyser of his automatic reasoning is painful. For him, to be out in the world would be torture. No wonder Sherlock Holmes tends to be a recluse. No wonder he seeks abstruse problems as a distraction. And no wonder he lets a little too much of his discernment slip out when he meets Watson’s fiancée at dinner.
We believe Downey as Holmes the observer, Holmes the reasoner, and Holmes the social pariah. What about Holmes the man of action? Was he really a martial arts expert? I think it’s a perfectly reasonable abstraction from the stories, although not one you often see on stage or screen. The screen Holmeses tend to be curled up in their Baker Street rooms cogitating. However, the stories make it clear that Holmes was a man of action. In fact, Holmes himself makes the distinction (in The Greek Interpreter) between his own style of active investigation and his brother Mycroft’s, who never stirs from his chair in the Diogenes Club. In the stories, we hear about Holmes’s prowess with fencing and baritsu. We even hear about Holmes besting much larger and stronger men in fist-fights (The Speckled Band, The Sign of Four), although that kind of thing always occurs off-stage, probably due to Doyle’s Victorian sensibilities about what gentlemen ought and ought not to do in public. Combine Holmes’s powers of observation and reasoning with skill in fighting and, yes, you have a very capable man of action.
One of my concerns was that this Holmes would be too bohemian, too dissolute and debauched a character, more Oscar Wilde than Conan Doyle. But they didn’t go this route at all. For example, they never mention his cocaine habit, despite the nearly irresistible temptation of having Downey (who has had his difficulties with drugs) in the role. Neither does Holmes drink to excess or have sexual encounters of any kind.
When it comes to plot, they have done a superb job in creating a worthy adversary for Holmes. To turn once again to the superhero analogy, it’s important to select the right villain for the hero. For example, Batman stands for order and justice, so his ideal villain is someone like the Joker, who spreads chaos and disorder. For Holmes the ideal reasoner, there is Lord Blackwood, who displays apparent supernatural powers of evil. Blackwood is part of a coven steeped in mystic rites. He is actually executed for his part in the sacrifice of innocent victims, but apparently rises from the dead to provoke the spread of panic and dread of his powers in the populace. This is based on very real occurrences of the time. The Victorians, so modern in science and technology, were also ardent spiritualists and devotees of the mystic. It would not take much to push such a country into anarchy. (Lest we judge them too harshly, in our own time, a single envelope of white powder can cause an anthrax panic.) Can Holmes penetrate Lord Blackwood’s veil and defeat his nefarious schemes? It is reason vs. supernatural, with the world at stake.
What makes this more fascinating is that Holmes’s own abilities would have seemed magical or supernatural to people. In fact, the movie makes sly reference to this in a brief scene where Watson encounters a fortune teller, who uses some simple observations and astute guesses to seem truly clairvoyant – and Holmes-like.
As I mentioned, there are many details mined from the original stories. In the movie, Watson walks with a limp. Although this is never mentioned in the stories, it’s a plausible extension of the fact that Watson was wounded in the leg during his Army service in India. As the narrator of the adventures, Watson might gallantly forego mentioning his own disability. Also, in the movie, Watson seems to have a gambling problem. Again, while this is never mentioned in the stories, Watson’s knowledge of horse racing (Silver Blaze) is consistent with a bettor. And there is at least one mention of the fact that Holmes keeps Watson’s checkbook locked in his own desk, which would be consistent with battling a gambling addiction.
Irene Adler appears as the one woman who befuddles Holmes’s otherwise imperturbable faculties. In the stories, she’s one of the few adversaries to ever best Holmes. She is characterized as an impulsive and cunning adventuress. At the end of A Scandal in Bohemia, she is safely married to an ordinary lawyer and is leaving England “never to return”. However, it’s plausible to imagine that an adventuress might not stay married and out of England for long.
The movie is very funny at times, playing on the usual themes of Holmes vs. Watson, Holmes vs. the police, and Holmes vs. the world. In addition, the script is peppered with direct quotes from the stories, lifted from their original context but placed quite reasonably within the events of the movie. A purist would object to Watson’s being engaged to Miss Mary Morstan without Holmes ever having met the lady, because they were both introduced to her at the same time in The Sign of Four. But that is the only serious contradiction to the stories that I found. In the movie, it is simply part of the Watson-moving-out subplot.
The production itself is exquisite, evoking Victorian England in a million details large and small. I can’t imagine how they filmed some of the outdoor scenes, which seem to show whole factories, neighborhoods, rivers, and bridges, as they would have been in the late 1800s. Some of the technology seems slightly advanced for the time – including a primitive taser and a radio relay – but not enough for steampunk enthusiasts to get excited over.
I recommend this movie highly, both for Holmes fans and those who like a good Victorian adventure with plenty of humor. (By the way, since all the principal characters survive the story, and the specter of Professor Moriarty is looming in the background, there may well be a sequel.)
Comments