Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Directed by Guy Ritchie
Helming testosterone pumping action vehicles as Britain’s Tarantino, Guy Ritchie’s career has been anything but internal. Within the subtext of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, however, Ritchie has contradictorily focused his gaze inward, studying an existential struggle for self side-by-side with the loneliness of loss.
While sturdied by an expressive cast, the narrative rests within the headspace of its titled sleuth, minus an initial prologue. During these opening moments, the audience rebounds between the viewpoints of Holmes and the last film’s femme fatale, Irene Adler, eventually finding themselves abruptly deposited, via Adler’s demise juxtaposed with a purposeful dolly up to a solo dinning Holmes, inside the hero’s perspective. From therein the narrative aligns with the visuals to approximate Holmes’ frantic search for definition, as his symbiotic personality hungers for companionship in lieu of Adler and his betrothed best mate, Watson.
Exceeding the homosexual overtones present in the franchise’s first entry, here suggestive references are fervent and frequent, displaying Holmes’ frothing dismay at losing Watson to Mary. Similar to an ignored child, Holmes uses all his scraggly charm and daring-do to whisk Watson away on their own “honeymoon”, fueled by a covert desperation for interaction. For it is through his reaction to others that Holmes finds himself. Ritchie and his costume department caricature that existential search visually through the consulting detective’s increased usage of disguises, most notably his turn as a female passenger during the film’s train sequence. Outside of the obvious gag, such a costuming choice not only exaggerates homosexual underpinnings, but also a subconscious desire for interest from Watson by using the gender currently occupying his attention.
Painting with a black humored brush, Ritchie surrounds Holmes with examples of social bonding by way of productive pairings, for example the familial gypsy camp. Even the film’s villain, Moriarty, comprises half of a more cooperative team than that of Holmes and Watson.
Climatically, Holmes reaches a stalemate, of sorts, with himself as well as his mirror opposite, Moriarty. Utilizing his energized pairing of narration and slow-motion (an internal device portraying Holmes’ thoughts), Ritchie concludes his protagonist’s journey with Sherlock discovering he will triumph, not by enacting self-serving methods, but choosing a strategy which is simultaneously sacrificial and altruistic.
Buddy action pictures, such as Ritchie’s previous Snatch and Rock n’ Rolla, usually resign themselves primarily with chest bumping and high-fiving through extended fisticuffs, explosions, and pursuits, which, fairly, are present in Game of Shadows, but the subtextual foundations here are something more than elementary.
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