Sherlock and the Brothers

2010_4_02 Sherlock Holmes and Brothers
Last night I watched “Sherlock Holmes” and this afternoon it was “Brothers.”No two movies could be more different; no two directors could be more different. Guy Ritchie is interested in being hip and outlandish, and he loves artifice and razzle-dazzle, while Jim Sheridan likes to focus of emotional truths in the family situation and what is most human in the narrative.
It goes without saying that Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes” has little relationship to the traditional portrayal of the English Master of Deduction, whether you think of Basil Rathbone or some of the Holmes that have turned up on television. Ritchie and Robert Downy have come up with a characterization that flies in the face of tradition and sticks its tongue out at it. Actually, I found it at first glance very refreshing. This Sherlock was more of a physical being, less the introspective gentleman, but an active soul out in the world battling with the forces of evil and even having a girl friend (Rachel McAdams) that treated him rather badly. Downy’s Sherlock lived in a messy and dirty apartment owned by Doctor Watson (Jude Law) who does not resemble the Watson of the past. He instead is a practicing doctor, young, also very physical, and about to be married. He was more the well-dressed English gentleman while Sherlock was more like the bohemian artist of the late 19th Century living a hard-scrabble existence in a chaotic apartment-cum-workshop that resembled Francis Bacon’s painting studio in London, which was a clutter zone of unbelievable trashiness. But Holmes, just like Bacon, said he knew where every scrap of paper was. However, one feature of Holmes genius remained the same: his powers of observation and deduction. They are still acute and save the day against a villain named Blackwood (Mark Strong.)
But all things considered it is the hip outlandishness that is the signature aspect of this interpretation. First of all, it was the dirtiest London I have ever seen in a film, having a kind of Dicksonian ambiance, decay, and texture. The plot, what little there is, was outrageous, as was Blackwood, who has the audacity to pull a Jesus on Holmes and us. Strong plays Blackwood as if he were a man of steel bent on world domination by using black magic that seemed to predate the magic of Aliester Crowley. Adventures pile up; explosions explode; and black magic is finally exposed as mere clever trickery. It was all one man’s delusion of power which failed to fool the mighty Holmes. In a spectacular finale that rivals a James Bond’s fight to the death with the villain, Holmes bests the man while explaining to him the nature of his trickery and why it didn’t work. Those explanations are a work of art by themselves, fancies concocted of facts and theory so arcane or far-fetched all you can do is smile and suspend belief. But it doesn’t matter because getting there is more important than those final explanations. Twice during the film my wife turned to me and said,” Where is this movie going? I have completely lost the thread.” Not long after that she fell asleep. I followed the fun all the way to the end, not expecting more than what I got.
Where Ritchie digs fantasy, Sheridan is into the nitty-gritty reality and the clash of personalities. I knew little about the “Brothers,” just what I had gleaned from trailers on TV, that a soldier who had gone to Afghanistan comes home to find out his wife thought he was dead and discovers his no-account brother has slept with his wife and this news eventually causes considerable stress in the all the members of his family. Actually, that wasn’t right, as the home front brother merely kissed the wife one night; he never did sleep with her. But the returning brother, his mind bent by some awful experience in Afghanistan when he was held captive by the Taliban, thinks they had an affair and his paranoia about that corrupts his relation with his wife and brother and his lack of resolution about his guilt about what he had to do in Afghanistan ties his guts in knots.
Only when I saw the Special Features did I realize that the film was a remake of a Danish film of the same name. The Director of that film was a woman, whose name escapes me at the moment, who had more a political agenda than Sheridan had. After finding a screen writer who could convert the Danish narrative into a righteous America story, they talked to Jim Sheridan to direct the revamped narrative. Sheridan is an Irishman who made “My Left Foot” and other films. He had never done a remake so he was challenged by the opportunity, and he was eager to tackle the emotionality of the narrative. There was one active conflict in the family even before the Marine brother, Sam (Tobey McGuire) comes back from the war; it was between the father (Sam Sheppard), an ex-Marine who had fought in Vietnam and the other son Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) who he viewed as a loser and a bum, inferior next to his soldier son. The film opens with Tommy being released from Prison, so he has the mark of Cain on his forehead right off the bat. Since Sam, like his father, isn’t the type to share his misery with his family his refusal to share what happened creates a divide between him and his wife, Grace (Natalie Portman.) That core experience in Afghanistan was a “Sophie’s Choice” experience while he was a captive of the Taliban. He became so locked inside that awful memory that he remains too distant from the rest of the family, and that aloofness becomes a cancer that eventually explodes. It was his paranoia about Tommy and Grace that provided the trigger to his freak-out, where he smashed the new kitchen in a storm of anger. Cops arrive and he was taken off to jail and eventually lands in a Vet center somewhere. When he goes back home he was finally able to talk to Grace about what happened and that experience was redemptive and reconciling for the couple. The film concludes on that note
It is a somewhat difficult movie to watch because the emotionality of the film is often raw and intense. I would not call it an anti-war movie, as the war is only a context for the emotions to be felt and experienced, then they are brought home to be the prickly elements of the family drama. Jim Sheridan talks at length in the Special Features and he has some interesting things to say about his approach to filmmaking. One other feature in the film that I haven’t mentioned so far is the two daughters of Sam and Grace. They participated more in the story than what I would consider normal in a lot of films. Their feelings are counted as worthwhile and so are their comments. They are not little dolls that decorate the family—rather refreshing.