Mr. Holmes

[CBStew]

Every so often you see a movie where the story (plot) is secondary to the acting.  This movie is an example.  It showed off Ian McKellan's talent.  He plays Sherlock Homes at the end of his life, which this movie places after World War II.  There are no murders.  There aren't even any crimes.  In fact you don't even know what the mystery is until Holmes reveals it.  The movie could have been accurately titled "Adventures In Bee Keeping."  Yet the movie is engrossing.  It welds together three different time periods and stories from each.  McKellan makes you feel the vulnerability of old age, and to understand that the worst part of old age is not the physical deterioration, but the mental and memory loss.  The brilliant detective is reduced to writing memory clues on his shirt cuff.  That is one scary movie.