Image by bcostin, used under a Creative Commons license. First off, Max's insight isn't necessarily much of an insight. He writes:
"Holmes...to judge from the trailer, [is] a drug-addled, brilliant action detective [who presses] the bounds of Victorian society while prim, mannered Watson trundles grumpily alongside. I love it....[Watson in the movie is] faced with a man who flies in the face of Victorian morals with alarming ferocity, yet whom he deeply respects for his brilliance. What is poor James Watson to do, then, when he tries to record his friend's adventures? He writes them faithfully, and skirts the truth in presenting Holmes as a Victorian paragon who just happens to possess a host of questionable skills....I'm not saying that this is the truth of Holmes. It is, however, an interesting reading of Holmes, and a refreshing shift from classic portrayals of the infallible, unflappable Detective."
Perhaps I'm insane, and indeed, a group of my friends in college told me as much, but how is there any other possible interpretation of the Holmes stories? I've always interpreted Holmes as commentary on the inadequacy of Victorian sensibilities and institutions to grapple with the true nature of society: the man too silly to notice right away that a job that involves copying out the Encyclopedia is a scam, the Prince too foolish to deal with a principled, independent, strong-willed woman, the relatively intelligent Scotland Yard Inspector who is too quick to seize upon the obvious. Holmes can compensate for these deficiencies precisely he lives outside the constraining mores that limit others' vision, but he pays for that life in cocaine addiction, misanthropy, and general unsettledness. Watson doesn't just rationalize Holmes to the rest of the world--he helps keep him in it by trying to keep a check on his addiction. Holmes gives Watson a way to experience a seamier side of life without having to surrender his respectability, and Watson is Holmes' interpreter, a role the detective isn't sure he's willing to have anyone play in his life because he is, in his own strange way, a genuine rogue.
So Max's theory doesn't convince me that Guy Ritchie has a new and daring interpretation of the Holmes-Watson relationship. And I have some substantial concerns:
1. The Emphasis on the Supernatural--The key mystery in the movie concerns an allegation that an influential man rose from the dead. A few clues in the trailer suggest that Holmes will debunk his rising, but an image of a woman floating mysteriously above a coffin suggests that Ritchie is treating the possibility of the supernatural seriously within the Holmes universe. This is an unequivocally terrible idea. The existence of the supernatural would render the science of deduction deeply unreliable, undermining the central conceit that distinguishes Holmes as a detective. And more importantly, the Holmes universe is at its best when it's solidly within the realm of human passion, particularly the not-outsized problems of the British mercantile class, with certain diversions into upper-class matters of the heart or finances. I love The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle in part because of the battered hat that begins the story, and Holmes' decision to forgive a fairly ordinary man, much for the same reason I love The Red-Headed League for its thief who plays on the silliness of ordinary Englishmen. The encounters between Brits and Americans in A Study in Scarlet and The Adventure of the Dancing Men are all about restoring sensible English order in the face of irrational and criminal American intrusions. Bringing ghosts and ghouls into it is just overkill, especially when you have Professor Moriarty waiting in the wings and British stability to preserve?
2. The Shameful Treatment of Irene Adler--Adler is a fabulous character, a woman so principled and independent that the devil in Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Club Dumas (hugely underrated, in part because of that dreadful Johnny Depp-Frank Langella reinterpretation) takes her name. Sticking her in the movie in the form of eye candy is a bad idea for several reasons. First, the story centering around her is terrific, a tale of royalty gone weak and a woman too dignified to take advantage. Second, she beats Holmes exactly on his own terms. She doesn't seduce him and tie him to a bed, she doesn't flounce around in a corset, she does a bunk on him just when he thinks she's got her. She's not low enough to stoop to tricks like that, and Holmes isn't dumb enough to fall for them. It denigrates to her to suggest she falls for Holmes in any substantial way. The whole point of her character is that she's too much her own woman to waste her time blackmailing a former lover when she has a man she's happy with. Irene Adler is one of the few genuine points of entry for modern women into the Holmes universe. Reducing her to cheesecake, even in the enormously appealing form of Rachel McAdams, is an insult to female Holmes fans everywhere.
That said, the movie looks like a tremendous amount of fun. How can you begrudge a dude who takes a drag on a pipe and dives out of what appears to be a room in Parliament into the Thames? Jude Law looks dandy with a mustache, and appears appropriately affronted by the trials of living with Robert Downey Jr. on a bad bender. But I have a hard time expecting it to be a masterful portrait of Sherlock Holmes. That may have to wait for a director with less brio than Ritchie, but with a deeper understanding.