ENOLA HOLMES (2020)

REVIEW BY: ROBERT CHANDLER

ENOLA HOLMES on Netflix is a treat! Delightful, whip smart, and carrying a lightness of touch that belies the hard work behind it.

Millie Bobby Brown and Helena Bonham Carter excel as the daughter and mother pulled apart by the politics of the times.

Millie is Enola, a young sister to Sherlock and Mycroft. I was going to say “fictional” sister to the two but of course they never existed either. Let’s just say that Enola was never part of Arthur Conan Doyle’s works. She was invented by American novelist, Nancy Springer.

Director Harry Bradbeer brings his Fleabagian fourth-wall-break to the mix and it works. Once or twice it tips into affectation but, on the whole, the device works to remind us how alone Enola is on her adventure. The only person in whom she can confide is the viewer. There’s one poignant moment where I was willing Bradbeer and Brown not to have Enola glance out at us... and they didn’t. The moment remained tender and intact.

Jack Thorne loads the script with pertinent points about the world today; Henry Cavill is modest and restrained as Sherlock, trailing the case in his sister’s wake; while Sam Claflin (outstanding) is rigorously sinister as Mycroft, determined to preserve a patriarchal system of governance that serves his kind so well.

 Millie Bobby Brown is a revelation. If you’ve only seen her in STRANGER THINGS, check her out in this, a film she produced as well as stars in, and carries, ably. I like it that she doesn’t play Enola as a grin-and-bear-it tough Mary Sue, but gives the character the age and inexperience at which she was written. She gets upset and cries in places. She bruises.

ENOLA HOLMES promises a franchise. There are a couple of things set up in the first film that don’t get paid off; further films can handle this. 

Recommended.