Erroneous Criticisms of the New Holmes Film

[todabrilla]

Yesterday I spoke with the secretary at work about the Sherlock Holmes movie, which I enjoyed a good deal more than I expected. I found it interesting that many of her complaints about the movie were actually aspects that the movie got right. She complained that this Holmes was too messy and eccentric, not knowing that those had long been characteristics of the very bohemian Holmes described in the books. The secretary said she's always thought of Holmes as being the stereotype of the conservative British gentleman. She also didn't like that he was so callous and mean, not knowing that in the canon, that Watson usually had to soften his rougher edges and intercede as a more humane interlocutor. In addition, she didn't hold with him boxing and using martial arts. I pointed out that although never an action hero in the books, that Holmes was skilled in both fisticuffs and baritsu, Doyle's invented form of "Japanese wrestling". What's more she didn't care for "that Robert Downey man" because of his drinking and drug abuse. I then informed her that Holmes had always been written as a cocaine addict. Certainly, I had a great many problems of my own with the new movie, but it's silly to criticize those aspects of the film which the creators got right. It seems that there is an impression of the Holmes character in the pop culture which exists separately from the character as depicted in the stories. Was this staid, dapper, and kind, if cerebral, creation the result of a blurring of portrayals in previous films? I think that the flawed egotistical and eccentric drug-addict is a far more interesting character than this other boy scout.

And don't get me started on the Nigel Bruce school of Watsons. :)