This is a slow moving but powerful film that takes a very different view of Holmes...as a very old (93 years) retired apiarist. McKellen gives two superb performances, one as the 93- year old and also,with grace and vigor, as the Holmes of legend and reputation. The film is structurally quite complicated as there are not only a number of parallel stories running together, but themes as well. The central concern of the film is, I think, Holmes dealing with his mortality...with a brilliant mind fading, an increasingly unresponsive body and an awareness of what he may have done wrong in his life and an attempt, successful I believe, to atone for that and also, as he ages, now turning his mind on himself and seeing himself for who and what he was and is. He performs his ' trick' of telling someone about themselves from merely looking at them but as the film progress one realizes that he is, perhaps for the first time, turning his deductive skills upon himself...and he is sufficiently sharp and self aware enough to realize that he does not like many aspects of what he finally honestly sees.
Towards the end of the film, as all the story lines were being tied up, I did feel that it was getting a bit rushed and would have liked the pace to match that of the majority of the rest of the film ( Anna Ellenbogen I know you will not agree with this!)
Marvellous performances all round from the actors and a lovely moving meditation on aging and coming to terms with who one is and what one has done with one's life.