Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson: Dynamic Duo or Hero and Fan Boy?

I have no idea how good the new Sherlock Holmes movie will be, but one concept they're going with that I happily anticipate is the way they're portraying Dr. Watson. Instead of the fat, befuddled, and terminally clueless Watson immortalized by Nigel Bruce in a string of 1940's movies, you're getting the lean, lady-killing bad ass that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle originally intended (or rather his Victorian version of such a character). While there have been attempts to more accurately portray Doyle's original version of Watson (The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1971) and The Seven Percent Solution (1976)), film makers always seem to come back to the bumbling sidekick, (Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), and Without a Clue (1988), a film where Holmes fills the Watson role).

In Doyle's stories and books Watson is a skilled physician, an experienced combat medic with a resultant war wound and bout with enteric fever that nearly killed him, a fair shot with a pistol - a talent Holmes depends on frequently - and he's a man who's been married several times. While he's no lecher and always acts the gentleman, Dr. Watson takes particular note of the more attractive clients that wander into the Baker Street offices, unlike the intellectually detached Holmes.

Watson is no intellectual slouch, either (though he frequently appears so when compared to the genius of Holmes). While at first Watson is amazed by Holmes' deductive leaps, his character quickly comes to understand Holmes' methods of deduction and is able to practice them himself on occasion. As the series continues, Watson becomes increasingly more capable of figuring out how Holmes has arrived at his conclusions, once the conclusions are identified by Homes, of course.

While many appreciate that Sherlock is Doyle's intellectual ideal - a thinking machine capable of rising above the turmoil of emotion to be in perfect control of himself and his surroundings - they fail to realize that Watson is ideal as well. He possesses the skills and attitudes of the "man of action" and he's a ladies man. But to Doyle's credit, Watson possesses a greater depth than this. He is the voice of human sympathy in the Holmes stories. It is his heart that is moved by the plight of the victims and his frequent determination to right the wrongs and avenge the injustices that provide an additional narrative impetus besides Holmes' intellectual drive to solve the puzzle. I have no idea whether Jude Law will portray this side of Watson, but it seems a narrative necessity unless the Holmes character is given more emotional depth than usual.

An interesting departure from the norm, (both Doyle's and the Nigel Bruce's version of Watson), is that Jude Law's Watson seems far less admiring of Holmes. At best, Doyle's Watson would become occasionally irritated by Holmes' lack of empathy with the rest of the human race and his bizarre quirks (shooting up a wall in their apartment out of boredom, for example). Law's Watson openly criticizes Holmes and actually hits him in one trailer clip.

And to conclude on an unrelated side note, which I mention to display my admiration of the way this new version seems to be sticking to Doyle's original vision, (and to address some public criticism of Holmes character treatment), it is very plausible that Holmes would get into a public boxing match. To prove this, I offer the following quote from The Sign of Four:

"Oh, yes you do, McMurdo," cried Sherlock Holmes genially. "I don't think you can have forgotten me. Don't you remember that amateur who fought three rounds with you at Alison's rooms on the night of your benefit four years back?"

"Not Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" roared the prize-fighter. "God's truth! how could I have mistook you? If instead o' standin' there so quiet you had just stepped up and given me that cross-hit of yours under the jaw, I'd ha' known you without a question. Ah, you're one that has wasted your gifts, you have! You might have aimed high, if you had joined the fancy."