Holmes and Watson in a spat?
Like all reviews in The Film Feministe, I strive to reveal a brief synopses of a film as well as an analysis. Occasionally my reviews include minor plot spoilers; caveat emptor.
I love Westerns. I love action films. One of the reasons I seek these out and watch them is because more than just about any other type of film I enjoy a well-done “buddy picture”. These seem exceedingly rare; look at your average Hollywood film marketed as a “buddy picture” and you have a couple of (usually white) men punching and shooting because they “have” to or they should; a handful of women serve as either serious love-interest or titillating arm-candy and ogling fodder. Few “buddy pictures” really develop on the nature, integrity, and character of the men therein, although that is supposedly what the film is about. In subsequent editions of this column I’d like to talk a bit about when buddy pictures get it right; here we have an example of one that got it almost completely wrong – despite having some wonderful material to start with.
Without further ado… I give you Film Feministe’s Dick Flick Edition (Part One)!
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
One of my early cinematic memories of a life lived loving movies was my mother telling me of a Sherlock Holmes film rendition in which “Watson and Holmes were homosexuals” (The way my mom says “homosexual” sets my teeth on edge). My mother identified the gay Holmes film as 1988′s spoof Without a Clue starring Michael Caine and Sir Ben Kingsley. A cursory review of this older film does not reveal there is any romantic plot or subplot between the two men; knowing my mother, she probably got her facts wrong.
I loved the Sherlock Holmes fiction stories and have read them forward and backwards yearly since the age of ten. A few months ago when I saw the trailer for the newest Guy Ritchie installation I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Upon first glance the film looked to have stripped away the character of Holmes and the appeal of his stories, supplanting these with explosions, fisticuffs, high-gloss, slickness, and – incredibly – sexual titillation (sex in the fiction series? Zero). But, as a Holmes-lover, I couldn’t stay away.
Even with my modest expectations I was surprised how much it got things wrong. In fact, the film got so much wrong it is much easier to pinpoint what it (almost) got right: namely, the bond between Watson and Holmes. For me it has never mattered much whether there was a romantic or sexual relationship between the two men; this interpretation or a strictly platonic one could serve the stories equally well. An exemplary aspect of the Sherlock Holmes installations were less his so-called “clever” deductions (many of which were impossible for a reader to have predicted or participated in, given they often revolved around implausible and last-minute-delivered minutiae from Holmes’ physical or mental library) than rather the relationship between the two crime-solvers. Holmes and Watson loved one another. Deeply, loyally, and certainly to the exclusion of actual details in case-solving when such a choice had to be made. I have always been drawn to stories of deep friendship and fidelity despite adversity – whether between men or women, and including or excluding a sexual element. Holmes and Watson continue to deeply satisfy me as a reader, even when the stories and mysteries, make no mistake, are often rather silly and contrived.
To say Guy Ritchie’s latest imagining of Holmes was capable of hinting at a sexual relationship between the two men would be understatement. There are so very many visual and verbal clues as to this being the case it would be exhaustive to list them. Much of the double entrendre is delivered in aggressive, playful fashion by Holmes (played by Robert Downey Jr.) to Watson (played by Jude Law). The plot and subplot are essentially skeletal framework on which the larger story of the two mens’ relationship plays out: there is a mystery, of course, involving violent, conspiratory elements to fill the run time of the film (Holmes’ mysteries were often only a few pages). The film’s theme, however, is the impending breakup of the active partnership between the two men. Watson is getting married to Mary Morstan and will soon be moving out of the Baker Street residence. Holmes seeks to disrupt the engagement and the move-out date in every way possible.
Watson is a more active participant in the film than he was in the books. When he’s not assisting Holmes on the shockingly dangerous and physically violent errands of mystery-solving (more on this a bit) he spends much of the screentime asserting his agency to leave his obsessively needy companion. Their bickering is partly old-roommate, partly sexual. In a early moment of the film the two are arguing about Watson’s imminent departure and Holmes lifts a long cane up to his friend’s mouth. “Get that thing out of my face,” Watson snaps at his housemate. “It’s not in my face, it’s in my hand,” Holmes mildly teases back. “Get the thing that’s in your hand out of my face,” Watson snarls in return. The film is filled with many such in-jokes and allusions although a clueless person might not see them (or wish not to see them – hello, repressed straight males, oddly enough a target audience for the punch-em-up nature of the film).
Any sexual guesswork as to this version of the Holmes / Watson relationship is irrelevant in analyzing other choices the film makes, most of them familiar and namely, a most Drake McManslab series of plot events. There are a myriad of explosions, poison gases, the destruction of massive amounts of property (really. lots), electronic torture devices, freakishly brutal henchmen, and perhaps least appealing and most boring of all, endless, slow-then-rapid-motion fight scenes, some of them half-naked (Robert Downey Jr. has a rockin’ bod), many with deadly, terrible weapons. The fight scenes might go almost unnoticed to audiences used to the simultaneous pornographic exploitation and trivialization of violence – and that’s the point. The film, instead of taking us somewhere imaginative, truly sinister, or realistically scary, merely employs chains, cattle-prods, axes, bullets, and numerous other forms of brutality in semi-comedic treatment that – if witnessed in real life – would have real-life and horrific repercussions (okay, yes, I am aware this is a Guy Ritchie film).
The violence is used often but only halfheartedly informs us of Holmes character. He is a macho, macho man, sporting fighting-weight abs and vicious fighting skills. He punishes himself masochistically in the boxing ring and is too emotionally remote and physically tough to notice damage inflicted on his person (curiously, this film version has Holmes drinking alcohol and just about any other stimulating and illegal substance; no mention of cocaine, which in the books was his only chemical dependency). OK, yes, we get it. Tough, tough guy. Anyone read these books? The literary Holmes was tough, but not Big McLargeHuge-tough – he was not given to sport but an able boxer and a man of tremendous physical strength (that he rarely deigned necessary to employ), by terms lazy and driven, prone to cocaine and tobacco but no other vice – and yes, not even “fast women”, of which the film also takes liberty to add:
Because further progressing a tired hyper-masculinied meme, there are no women in the film. Indeed all females – including grisly murder victims and the two romantic (yet largely ornamental) leads – are referred to as “girls” (hint: you might realize you are watching a tired-ass sexist film if the female characters are never referred to by name, or as “women”, but rather – girls, or in the case of Mamet, broads. Seriously. Pay attention next time). Mary Morstan (played by Kelly Reilly) shows up so infrequently we’re not sure at all why Watson is marrying her. Her performance embodies the traits of high-class demeanor yet accessibly sexual – and even though she is supposed to be the love of Watson’s life, she is conveniently absent from screen time (in the books she was instrumental in “The Sign of Four”, one of the more epic Holmes stories). Irene Adler is even further altered from the character in the book to ill effect, turned from a woman of the world to a cute li’l thing in the casting of Rachel McAdams. Adler is no longer the intelligent, dignified, and wronged woman-cum-blackmailer of the book (who did not have any physical relationship with Holmes, I seek to ad) but instead one of those Sexy Ninja-Thief Ladies we’ve been enduring with regularity since the Charlie’s Angels revival of the eerily nineties. She lacks the human traits and character foibles her male co-stars get in spades; her main traits seem to be that of being besotted with Holmes, a whiff of standard duplicitous femme fatale, and being very, very pretty. Did I mention she’s pretty? Gosh-darn, she really is.
The cast is good, but underused. The talents of Mark Strong, like McAdams, are wasted in the role of Lord Blackwood, a creepy Satanist-or-is-he? of standard fare. I was surprised and pleased by the role, casting, and character of Lestrade (Briton Eddie Marsan), a minor but familiar customer in the Holmes canon. Costumes, location, and historical backdrop were used to the effect you’d expect from a big-budget film; namely, with much flare and little depth. The costumes, naturally, made me drool, but then, I am a sewist.
In conclusion, I could have forgived the glossiness or even the punch, punch, punch, slap, smack – if only we’d had a compelling storyline between the two men, whose friendship is a legendary one. The last bit of film reveals a character and subplot that will make it near impossible for me, or any other Holmes fanatic, to stay away from the sequel; I’m hoping if the institution is not handed off to a less uber-masculine director we at least slow down. Less slow-motion super-punches, more of the deep draught of a wonderful friendship between two thrillingly well-rendered characters.
Never judge a book by its movie.
-J.W. Eagan
Mentioned:
03/14/2010 ETA: Holmes and I, a blog post