Mystery reimagined

By Lyndsie Kiebert
Reader Staff

The Netflix original Enola Holmes is the latest endeavor for 16-year-old rising actress Millie Bobby Brown, who found fame in her role as Eleven in the hit series Stranger Things. Brown ditched the monsters in her latest work but kept the mystery, resulting in a fun and fast-paced story that pairs history with activism to create a perfect film for a 2020 movie night.

Courtesy photo.

In a nutshell and without spoilers, Enola awakens on her 16th birthday to find her mother is missing. She calls her two older brothers — Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes — for help, but ultimately decides to embark on a journey to find her mother herself. She ends up helping a runaway boy — Viscount Tewksbury, a soon-to-be member of the House of Lords — escape his assassin and ultimately discovers that each of her entanglements have something in common: the upcoming vote on a reform bill which would aid the women’s suffrage movement in 1880s England.

The film has garnered a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is enough to tell anyone that it isn’t just some teeny-bopper knock-off placed in a well-loved character’s world. Enola Holmes, based on the series of young adult novels by Nancy Springer, pays adequate tribute to the quirks and complexities that make Sherlock Holmes stories great, while also creating a main character and plot that provide a needed feminist reinvention for modern viewers.

Brown absolutely owns her role as Enola, providing the energy and charm that propels the film through its more than two-hour run time. She even regularly breaks the fourth wall, addressing the camera directly, confiding in the audience or sharing humorous asides. While this would typically make me cringe, Brown makes it feel natural. Why wouldn’t she be talking to us? In a film where she is largely left alone — read: Enola backwards — the viewer is her confidant, and we are more than happy to be there for her.

Critics across the board have lambasted the casting choice for Sherlock — played by British actor and former Superman Henry Cavill — as being untrue to the traditionally cold, analytical and physically slight portrayal of the legendary detective. Cavill brings a warmer side to Sherlock, though still staying true to the quiet and brainy parts of the character as he attempts to track down his sister. Cavill also makes for a hunky, cow-licked, can’t-rest-his-massive-arms-at-his-sides Sherlock, and you won’t be hearing any complaints from me.

Where I do harbor my one complaint is with the movie’s sudden and unnerving transition from whimsical to outright terrifying. The film is rated PG-13 for a reason, but that reason isn’t apparent until you near the climax. While the violence up until that point is composed mostly of hand-to-hand combat, soon there’s a grisly and jarring death by blunt trauma to the head, and even some gun play. 

Not to mention perhaps the scariest part: when Enola’s brother Mycroft, a powerful and crotchety man, retrieves her after she’s run away and yells at her in the carriage on the ride home. Interpretations of what is violent and what isn’t varies from person to person, but for me, this scene was fairly triggering.

In all, Enola Holmes is a funny and enthralling ride through mystery, political strife and the complexity of human relationships. The costuming is superb, the score is captivating and, above all, Millie Bobby Brown has found the role she was born to play. What’s more, it couldn’t have come at a better time. A movie about civil unrest, political reform and the power of a single vote released in the fall of 2020? What a coincidence.

The film’s end makes it clear that this isn’t the last we’ll see of Enola Holmes, and for that, I am grateful.