The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes & Arthur Conan Doyle (2005)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This is not a TV movie with much of a drive to it; for the most part it moves along very patiently. But it did manage to stay vaguely interesting, and somewhat more so after the half-way point. If you know something about Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes alike, it may be amusing to watch this interpretation of the relationship between the creator and his creation.The flashbacks to Conan Doyle's "youth" and his encounters with Dr. Bell come across as slightly awkward since the actor is obviously just as middle-aged as ever -- especially when seen in a lecture hall full of twenty-something students that are supposedly his peers.The end may not make a whole lot of sense, though. So Mr. "Selden" was actually some kind of manifestation of Holmes himself? Our first thought is then that the whole affair was psychological -- just Conan Doyle's own fantasies playing out before our eyes. But "Selden" is apparently just as visible to Conan Doyle's butler, to his mother and to Dr. Bell -- interviewing them while Conan Doyle is not even present. So do we go for a wholesale paranormal explanation here, with a fictional character entering the physical world to influence his own author? When that character is supposed to be the ultra-rational Holmes, it becomes something of a contradiction in terms to involve him in a semi-supernatural phenomenon.But be that as it may, the TV movie did manage to hold my attention throughout, despite its low-key/undramatic style and patient pacing. The relationship between Conan Doyle and his new girlfriend was also beautifully presented, in the same patient manner (and the actress wasn't hard on the eyes). We'll give the whole seven stars. Just don't expect anything like an action movie.

How can a writer decide to kill his character when this character is particularly famous and well known and admired and considered as a real man? He sure can and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did it without any regret and against all kinds of resistance from everywhere. But that starts in him a phenomenal storm under his skull, a fit of total schizophrenia. He relives his own life and he searches his youth and grown up life to try to understand why he killed his own doppelganger without whom he is nothing but the very shadow of himself, not even a shade cast by a dead tree, just a ghost accompanying his consumptive wife to the grave. That's what this film tells us and the life of Sir Conan Doyle is the centre of the film. The alcoholic father and in those days you ended up in an asylum, locked up behind bars and even with chains and a straight jacket if necessary. His frustrated mother who is paranoid about the end of this man she had institutionalized. The obsession of the young Conan Doyle with his professor, an obsession that was so true, so strong that he had to cannibalize him into his own fictional creation of a character. That's the kind of passion some students have the chance to meet in their studying years: the passionate attraction to a professor who will have the passionate answer of literally enchaining him with his own liberty so that the student will never be able to go away, to go another way because it would mean he is losing his freedom. That's how some students who have some difficulties in their life, family, money, ambition, wavering stamina, difficulty at defining their own future goal and route and following their own trail find the way up and out onto the road that is generally less traveled as the poet put it. Most students never encounter that ethereal passion and most professors never even imagine it can exist. They have vaguely heard of Conan Doyle and Doctor Joseph Bell. Or H.G. Wells and Professor Thomas Henry Huxley. They have also seen, witnessed and at times assisted such a passion but everyone, and first of all the professor and the student, remained quiet about it. They did not speak bout it. They respected it because a passion has to be respected and some of our best minds in this world have been produced by such scholastic passions. That's the fundamental system of English and also American universities: the personal relations between the professors and the students are considered as the most formative part of the teaching and training. At times it does not work at all because the student wavers and steps back, or because the professor is too hard and frightens the student away. It is not a question of gender at all, and in all the meanings of the term or of the term it takes the place of in our politically correct society. Here Conan Doyle after a very successful debut decides to cut off the umbilical cord. But will he succeed? Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

The first 50 minutes of this movie were quite boring. It focused on the personal problems Doyle had, including his sick wife, death threats by fans, a pushy publisher and feelings of guilt concerning his mentally ill father. Even though these subjects had an important impact on Doyle's life, I was more curious about the birth of Sherlock Holmes. The last 40 minutes were excellent. We finally got a look inside Doyle head, how he created Holmes and why he had to 'kill' Holmes. The actors are excellent. Including the intriguing Selden played by Tim McInnerny, Arthur Conan Doyle, a compelling role played by Douglas Henshall and Brian Cox as the 'role model' for Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Bell. The locations are good, especially for a TV movie and the camera work is nice. If the first 50 minutes were as good the the last 40 minutes this would have been a small masterpiece.

Written by the writer who penned the excellent Murder Rooms series which chronicled ACD's adventures with Doctor Joseph Bell, I was looking forward to this and I wasn't disappointed. It was quite slow moving, with a lot of emphasis on Doyle's frustration at Sherlock Holmes which was very accurate and excellently portrayed. It was an interesting character study and very well shot ( on digital video, unusual for a period piece ). The acting was excellent all round, particularly Tim McInnery and Brian Cox although the actor who portrayed ACD, whose name I cannot remember impressed me no end. An excellent character study which has about the same amount of twists as any normal Sherlock Holmes case. Do see this if you get the chance