Film Review: Enola Holmes

Enola Holmes is the latest from Netflix, adapted from the first book in The Enola Holmes Mysteries series by Nancy Springer. The film is adapted by writer Jack Thorne and director Harry Bradbeer. In it, we follow Enola (Millie Bobby Brown), a bright, skilled, yet sheltered teenager who also happens to be the little sister of Sherlock Holmes (Henry Cavill). One day, her mother Eudoria, who she has had a deeply close relationship, especially after the father passed, has gone missing. Her oldest brother, Mycroft (Sam Claflin), is now her legal guardian and wants her put in a boarding school.

As you would guess, Enola isn’t so keen on the idea. She is far too curious and adventurous to just end up in a boarding school where she would be taught how to be a more proper, high society woman. She finds clues that Eudoria has left behind, and decides to escape from Mycroft’s grip, and travel to London, where she believes her mother is hiding out for reasons that she is trying to piece together. But things don’t go as smoothly as she wants, since she soon finds herself sucked into a conspiracy that revolves around a young Lord Viscount Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge), who is being targeted by mysterious men.

If there’s anything to say about Enola Holmes, it’s that it has a ton of style and personality going for it. From the snappy script to the flashy, fourth-wall breaking direction to the energetic score from Daniel Pemberton, it really hits the ground running with lots of fascinating flourishes that keep you engaged throughout the narrative. And at no point does it ever comes across as gimmicky. It all feels rooted in Enola’s rebellious and nonconformist attitude, and it makes for a really fun watch.

Speaking of Enola, the film works best when it’s letting Millie Bobby Brown just eat up the screen. We’ve all become familiar with her as Eleven in Stranger Things, as well her turn in Godzilla: King Of The Monsters, and she’s made a name for her dramatic skills. With Enola, we get to see her really having fun, and it’s very satisfying. While the character can be a bit squeaky clean at times, she’s charismatic, she grounds the character well, and she effortlessly carries the film, even when bouncing off her more experienced co-stars like Cavill, Claflin, Carter, along with others like Adeel Akhtar, Fiona Shaw, Frances de la Tour, and Burn Gorman, who are all really good here too.

The film does get sloppy in a few areas. The central mystery isn’t quite as compelling and intriguing as some of the characters we’re following within it. However, it seems like much of it is kept within the background, since it’s more interested in Enola’s personal journey through this. Where the film falters the most is in its messaging, which can be somewhat dismissed because it’s ultimately a family film. The feminist theming is only as subversive as it would have been in the turn of the 20th century where the film takes place, focusing more on individual empowerment through typically male characterizations rather than tackling patriarchal systems.

Enola Holmes is a film I had a fun with. It is thoroughly delightful, and a ton of fun, even if there isn’t a whole lot going on under the surface, along with its girl power messaging feeling tacky and outdated. As a family film, it contains a sense of adventure we don’t usually see in family entertainment anymore – at least, not in live action, and it has a likable heroine at the center of it all. Brown is terrific, Claflin is appropriately slimy, and Cavill brings a unique take on Sherlock. I loved that the film was able to work as its own piece without feeling the need to sequel-bait, while also keeping the doors open for future stories. The Sherlock Holmes property is one that we’ve seen time and time again, and fairly recently too. However, this film provides a fresh and fun enough spin to the material that I wouldn’t mind seeing these characters again in a new adventure.

Enola Holmes is now available on Netflix.