Enola Holmes Review: Mystery Solved, the Latest Holmes is a Pure Delight
From Basil Rathbone to Jeremy Brett to Benedict Cumberbatch to Robert Downey Jr., we’ve seen countless portrayals of Sherlock Holmes.
In the new Netflix movie Enola Holmes, his younger sister is getting a chance to shine.
Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown plays the titular role (and produces the movie), as Enola defies her overprotective brothers to search for her missing mother.
Brown is joined by a star studded cast, with Superman himself, Henry Cavill as the world’s most famous detective, Sam Claflin as their brother Mycroft, and Helena Bonham Carter as their mother Eudoria.
There’s no mystery about whether or not Enola Holmes is worth watching. It’s a fantastic adventure, with a captivating lead, new supporting characters, and an always timely theme of female empowerment.
Die hard Sherlock Holmes fans know that all adaptations live and die on who plays the lead detective. Brown has all the delightful qualities you want in a Holmes. She’s brilliant, funny, independent, and even breaks the fourth wall.
Right from the start she draws the audience into her world by establishing Enola as a happy outsider. She doesn’t fit in, and has no desire to do so.
Sherlock and Mycroft blow into her life, completely disregarding her wishes, pushing her to run away looking for her mother.
Cavill is his usual charming self as a Sherlock who is simultaneously guilty for missing so much of his sister’s life, and intrigued by the smart young woman she has become.
The development of their relationship is an interesting story that definitely needs to be explored more in future films we’re sure are coming.
In typical Holmes fashion, the missing mother is merely the jumping-off point into a larger mystery. On the way to London, Enola meets runaway Lord Tewksbury on the train. Someone is trying to kill him, and Enola is quickly drawn into the adventure.
With his teen appeal and boy band hair, Louis Partridge’s Tewksbury is straight out of a CW show. He’s presented as a friend/possible love interest for Enola, but that’s something left for the long term.
Their friendship has just the right balance of rescuing and young love, so that it doesn’t interfere with Enola’s journey.
Bonham Carter appears in flashbacks as Enola uses her mother’s unorthodox lessons to navigate the dangers of being a detective. While she brings her trademark eccentric personality to the role, we don’t actually spend much time with her.
When Eudoria finally reunites with her daughter, she gives no real answers about why she left or where she’s been. She only offers Enola an apology and the excuse that she was protecting her.
Maybe the rest of this story is being saved for another movie, but Enola and the audience deserve real closure.
Like Sherlock, Enola has her own fascinating cast of supporting characters. Susie Wokoma is awesome as Edith, the tea shop baker/women’s hand to hand combat instructor/secret feminist. She is someone we absolutely need to know more about.
In one of the film’s best scenes, she expertly reads Sherlock on his white male privilege being the reason he can’t understand his sister’s feelings or care about politics.
The movie’s one major misstep comes in its handling of Mycroft.
In recent years, Mycroft has been portrayed as a spy with skills equal to Sherlock, while their relationship features genuine brotherly love. However, this adaptation has Mycroft as an unrelenting villain who refuses to see Enola as an individual with her own agency.
He is presented as an overbearing jerk who is only concerned with what others think. He forces Enola into a finishing school, where he knows she’ll be miserable, because that’s what’s expected of “proper ladies.”
Unfortunately, this doesn’t give Claflin much to do, and he feels like a useless character who we don’t want to spend any more time with.
In the end, Enola solves the Tewksbury mystery before Sherlock, a feat which causes him great pride, and is able to use the reward money to establish her own independent life as a detective.
Despite its Victorian time period, Enola Holmes is the perfect hero for today’s modern young women. Brown’s effervescent performance and the interesting characters surrounding her makes this a world tailor-made for a successful series of films.
What did you think of Enola Holmes? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Enola Holmes is now streaming on Netflix.
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Stephanie Holland
Stephanie Holland is a nerdy lover of Star Wars, Disney, Doctor Who, Arrowverse, Star Trek and WWE. Is living the dream of turning a lifelong obsession with TV into an actual job. Still waiting for a reboot of the '80s classic Small Wonder.