Clewless

Mr. Holmes

Crit

So many films about memory these days, and now at least two of our best actors (thinking also of My Future Wife Julianne Moore in Still Alice; I may be forgetting others [rimshot]) have starred in films about the desperate battle against Alzheimer's. Talkin' about my g-g-g-generation.

Here it's Sir Ian McKellen as a real-life version of literature's most famous detective (the tales here the work of Watson, not Conan Doyle), working out mysteries left hanging in two backstories (the more central and the more interesting very Vertiginous) as well as in his ever-more-tenuous present. Less "there" there than intended, but always rewarding to watch the work of McKellen, Laura Linney (improbably frumpy as his housekeeper), and bees.