You can have your Benedict Cumberbatchs and your Robert Downey Jr.s; it’s Ian McKellen’s Sherlock Holmes that I’m excited for! That’s right: not satisfied with playing two iconic roles, not to mention his long and storied stage career, McKellen now will leave his mark as the consulting detective in Bill Condon’s A Slight Trick Of The Mind.
A Slight Trick Of The Mind will take place in 1947 and find Holmes retired and in Sussex with his housekeeper and his detective son (!). His mind is no longer quite as whip-crack smart as it used to be, and he’s being haunted by a 50 year old case that he can only recall bits and pieces of. The film is based on Mitch Cullin’s novel of the same name.
Director Bill Condon and McKellen last worked together on another ‘aging genius’ film: Gods and Monsters, in which McKellen portrayed Frankenstein director James Whale. That movie resulted in a Best Screenplay Oscar and a nod for McKellen. This new film sounds like it will be along the same lines as Gods and Monsters, but in some ways even more iconic.
Anne Carey, one of the producers of A Slight Trick Of The Mind, had this to say about the film and the reunion of McKellen and Condon:
Mitch Cullin’s elegiac novel is not so much about solving a mystery, as it is about accepting life’s mysteries … I could not be more excited about the talent who have come together to make this film a reality.
As a Sherlock Holmes fan, I could not be more excited. We sometimes forget that one of the things that makes McKellen so awesome is his talent; he puts all of himself into a role, whether as wizard, mutant or Shakespearean lead. I look forward to his interpretation of an elderly Holmes who has seen better days.
There’s no word yet on when filming on A Slight Trick Of The Mind will begin, but I’m crossing my fingers that it won’t be long. I already want to see this movie.
What do you think about McKellen’s casting? Willing to see him as Sherlock Holmes? Let us know in the comments.
