- Title: Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking
- IMDB: link
Rupert Everett brings a certain savior fair to the role of Sherlock Holmes in The Case of the Silk Stocking. Like Simon Brett, Everett doesn’t shy away from presenting Holmes as boorish and snobbish. If only the writing and the mystery had lived up to his performance.
Dr. Watson (Ian Hart) has left Baker Street and is preparing for his wedding. Sherlock Holmes (Rupert Everett) has removed himself from the mundane crime of London only finding solace in the prick of a syringe. Lured out of his despondency by Lestrade (Neil Dudgeon) and Watson, Holmes tackles a case involving a serial killer who preys on the young daughters of the London elite. Each victim is found dressed in clothes not her own, strangled to death, and with a silk stocking buried in her throat.
What works? Well the film stays true, in most part, to the characters and the relationships. It captures the Holmes and Watson relationship very well as Everett and Hart play excellently off each other. I also liked the way Lestrade was portrayed, as a competent policeman with limited manpower and imagination rather than the bumbling idiot that has been seen in so many Holmes style tales.
The filming and tone also are particularly good at conveying the time period and mood of the story. The look and feel of the cast and locations convey the style of Doyle’s London which feels like another character in the story.
Where the film starts to err however is where changes to the cannon have been made. Here is the one troubling aspect of Everett’s Holmes: his need of the help from both Watson and Watson’s bride-to-be Mary (Eleanor David), who do as much to solve the case as Holmes himself. Mary is put on a level of expertise almost equal to that of Holmes which I found troubling as it interferes with the basis of the characters as they have been written. I doubt Doyle would approve.
Also this Holmes struggles immensely through a sordid, but rather poorly thought out mystery. We are even given scenes of Holmes completely losing his cool as he struggles for what I found was an obvious answer. As for the bad guy, the Jack the Ripper style story has been done to death, pardon the pun, and you don’t really need that type of villain for a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Holmes has always been at his best when solving a complex mystery rather than chasing after a simple criminal.
This is even more troubling because the mystery is solved so early, about half way through the movie. So Holmes and company. have to spend the rest of the time trying to prove who the killer is rather than solving the mystery. There’s also a slight plot twist involved that I won’t divulge here other than to say it borders on bad soap opera.
I caught the movie on PBS and for a free 100 minutes of HD TV I had a pleasant enough time. It has also been released on DVD ($19.98 retail) with optional commentary by director Simon Cellan Jones. Holmes fans will find as much to enjoy as to moan about here; the performances, especially of Everett and Hart, do warrant some attention. All in all a fairly good look at Sherlock Holmes; I just wished someone had supplied a better mystery.