Mr. Holmes

Even a mind as extraordinary as sherlock Holmes would have eventually suffered the withering ravages of time.

That is the conceit of Mr. Holmes, in which Sir Ian McKellen plays the great detective at age 93. As the film opens, Holmes has retired to the country to raise bees and stave off dementia with the company of only his housekeeper (played by Laura Linney), her young son Roger, and his own rapidly fading memories. We find him returning to these memories frequently as he attempts to sort out the professional puzzles of his past, even as he faces more personal (and unsolvable) conundrums in his present. THE WORD: Themes of greatness giving way to inevitable loss pervade the film, making it tonally similar to Mr. Holmes director Bill Condon’s masterpiece, Gods and Monsters, which focused on the final days of James Whale, the gay director of the 1931 film Frankenstein. That character also benefitted from being played by McKellen, who — as both Holmes and Whale — offers exquisite performances of men seeking answers before their time is up. COMING TO: Theaters