The Sherlock Holmes Effect

When adaptations leave out the best part

This kind of goes along with my other post “The Hollywood ‘Friend-Zone’”, so if you haven’t read that, check it out.

I wanted to use this as kind of a case study of what Hollywood seems to prioritize by using one of my favorite fictional friendships: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. I’m gonna contrast two adaptations that I think handle the Sherlock-Watson dynamic in completely different ways, and how it affects the overall quality of the narrative.

RDJ Sherlock (Sherlock Holmes 2009)

Let me start off by saying I was PULLING MY HAIR OUT the entire time I was watching this because the relationship between Sherlock and Watson is next to nonexistent.

This is pretty much the whole movie.

Watson spends literally the entire movie frustrated with Sherlock. It reads like a teenager who just wants to hang out with his girlfriend but his annoying friend keeps hitting him up to go run around and jump fences. And then, right when you think we’re finally going to get some good ol’ fashioned Sherlock-Watson action, the movie LITERALLY EXPLODES JOHN WATSON and puts him a HOSPITAL for the last act of the story. I’m not exaggerating.

Sherlock turns into an action hero of sorts, running from explosions and saving the day in the nick of time and what-have-you. And yeah, this characterization of Sherlock has moments where it’s sort of fun in its own special way, but it loses its human element. You’re kind of having fun watching Robert Downey Jr. jump around London for 2 hours, but you don’t really know what’s going on. The story isolates Sherlock because it assumes he’s the most interesting part, and the story and audience suffer for it.

And this might be forgivable if the movie stood on its own two feet, but it doesn’t. The film itself is kind of a disjointed mess. The scenes are kind of aimless, and you leave character interactions feeling more confused than when you came in.

This doesn’t work because the writers wasted the most important part.

Watson is the audience’s perspective. Without him there as a medium to translate Sherlock’s cerebral, intense, introverted thought process into something that can be heard and seen, the connection with the audience is lost.

BBC Sherlock

Sherlock BBC has its own problems and victories, but what it really gets right is Sherlock and Watson’s dynamic.

And honestly, that might’ve been only thing it needed to get right.

Because the characters are so lovable and their dynamic is so addicting, people kept coming back to it, even despite the years it spent on hiatus. They wanted to spend time with Sherlock and Watson.

The friendship was so powerful it held up the show.

And it’s not hard to see why. The writing is witty, the characters have their own distinct and contrasting personalities, and these little atoms of storytelling are what make their chemistry is so magnetic. Instead of isolating Sherlock because “he’s the most interesting part of the story”, the show leans into Sherlock and Watson’s relationship. That’s the human element. Sherlock without Watson is inaccessible to the audience. Watson without Sherlock is uninteresting.

The two characters need each other in order to be compelling, which makes for an addictive chemistry. All the best friendships have a glue.

Don’t Waste Your Wingman

The best part of Sherlock Holmes is John Watson and the best part of John Watson is Sherlock Holmes.

I wouldn’t want to see Sherlock silently obsessing over cases or John just wandering around London alone. I wouldn’t want to see these characters doing anything else but being together, because that’s when they’re interesting. That’s what makes them fun to watch.

But that’s what Hollywood gets wrong. They try to distill what they think makes a story or a relationship great, and in doing so they end up taking out half of it. Sherlock and John have been friends for 137 years! Clearly, there’s something there that works.

Stop trying to “isolate the cool friend”. Don’t waste your wingman. They’re the best part.