Sherlock Holmes faces his own mortality

SHERLOCK Holmes never met a mystery he couldn't solve but when senility and a shaky memory get in the way, will the literary world's greatest detective finally be stumped?

Mr Holmes, directed by Bill Condon, written by Jeffrey Hatcher and based on the novel A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin, is a slow, sensitive and satisfying tale of an elderly man grappling with his own mortality while trying to right a previous wrong - if only he can remember exactly what it is.

For Holmes (Ian McKellen), it means revisiting his last case some 30 years ago, a case that resulted in a death and led directly to his retirement and self-imposed exile in a farmhouse in south-eastern England, where he potters around and keeps mostly to himself. For company, he has a patient housekeeper Mrs Munro (Laura Linney), her young, inquisitive son Roger (Milo Parker) and a colony of honey bees.