Review: ‘Enola Holmes’
A fun but slightly flat mystery adventure story, ‘Enola Holmes’ provides light entertainment with wonderful visuals and a perfect cast.
Following in the footsteps of famous brother Sherlock, young Enola Holmes does some detective work of her own, heading to London to locate her missing mother and outrun her ultra-conservative brother Mycroft, who is dead set on forcing her to enrol in a strict finishing school for girls. While trying to survive alone in the big city, Enola runs into yet another mystery; that of a missing Marquess.
Despite being marketed as a mystery film, much of ‘Enola Holmes’ focuses on the eponymous character’s struggle against oppressive, gendered expectations and her journey towards gaining her own freedom. Of course, there is a prominent mystery or two in there, but Millie Bobby Brown‘s amateur sleuth really just stumbles into them, or is motivated by personal attachment, as is the case with her mother. Additionally, the mysteries presented to us aren’t Sherlock-level puzzles. Each has a relatively simple solution that could be guessed fairly easily; the film clues us in early in the plot instead of keeping its secrets to itself. Fortunately, the story of Enola trying to make her own way in the world and escape from oppression is enough to allow audiences to empathize with her and engage with the film despite its simplicity.
Set against the backdrop of Victorian London in the time of the reform bill, the film starkly splits characters into the ‘good’ politically liberal and the ‘bad’ anti-reformists. Those in the latter group are opposed to granting more of the population the right to vote, and are portrayed as being quite simply backwards and old fashioned in their thinking. These characters, which include Sam Claflin‘s Mycroft Holmes, are rarely well-rounded or complex, instead being defined purely by their political alignment. Despite this, Claflin’s portrayal of Mycroft is brilliant. It is easy to look past the two-dimensional writing when the character, who constantly spouts misogynistic and generally offensive comments, is so easy to loathe.
It is the wonderful cast performances that really keep the film going. Henry Cavill is perfectly cast as Sherlock, bringing some much-needed needed gravitas to the famous character. While Enola and Sherlock haven’t seen each other for years at the start of the film, the rapport between Cavill and Millie Bobby Brown highlights the bond that their two characters share. Helena Bonham-Carter, who plays their missing mother, also shines in the limited amount of screen time that she is given. In the film, their mother is viewed as an eccentric character whose unconventional thoughts about feminism draw disdain from Mycroft. Bonham-Carter is perfectly cast in this role, as she is well-suited to playing a character whose views are at odds with the norm.
Another thing that the film does well is portraying the period piece in an entirely new light. Historically-set films are often viewed as so-called ‘Oscar bait’, and the genre is slowly becoming rather stale. ‘Enola Holmes’, however, has no delusions of grandeur when it comes to its awards opportunities, doing an excellent job of making Victorian London seem fun and exciting. This is in no small part due to the production design, which takes the films’ upbeat attitude and translates it into bright visuals that make what would otherwise be be a smog-covered city of misery into a world of opportunity.
The film also adds an extra dose of fun through its protagonist’s narration, often relayed straight to us in the audience. The breaking of the fourth wall increases the empathy that we feel for the eponymous character, as well as providing some much-needed exposition at times. However, the film does sometimes get a bit too frivolous with the use of this feature, and the winks and nods at the camera can feel a little bit cheesy.
All in all, ‘Enola Holmes’ is a fun, upbeat adventure with a superb cast. It is let down by the fact that the central mysteries are too simple, and that some of the characters are rather two-dimensional, but the lead cast carry the film easily with their solid performances. At the end the film seems to be setting up a possible sequel, and if Cavill and Bobby Brown wanted to team up for more mystery solving, it would be a more than welcome return to a promising franchise. – Lauren Miles
Rating: 3 / 5
‘Enola Holmes’ will be available on Netflix on September 23, 2020.