Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Enola Holmes’ on Netflix, Millie Bobby Brown’s Tremendous Star Turn

Enola Holmes‘ cache likely improved in the wake of the pandemic shutdown, going from a Warner Bros. theatrical release that seemed likely to get lost in the shuffle to an apparently ready-made smash for Netflix. It makes sense for the movie to land there: One, it’s a vehicle for Millie Bobby Brown, whose star rose when she became the anchor of Netflix’s smash series Stranger Things. And two, the adaptation of Nancy Springer’s acclaimed Enola Holmes Mysteries novels sure seems poised to lift our spirits.

ENOLA HOLMES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Victorian England. It’s a time when the patriarchy was a giant carnivorous dinosaur roaming the valley and feminism was a somewhat far-off asteroid hurtling towards Earth. In that setting, Enola Holmes (Brown) being raised on a remote countryside estate by a single mother (Helena Bonham Carter) who teaches her everything from tennis to Shakespeare to chemistry to jiu jitsu, is just unimaginably f—ed up, because then she might become an intelligent woman capable of thinking for herself. I mean, Enola is 16 and doesn’t know how to embroider. I’ll say it again: SHE DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO EMBROIDER. The world is so obviously going straight to hell.

But Mum also kept secrets and participated in shadowy mumblings in the house with other women, things that surely led her to up and leave one night, never to return. It’s terribly sad for Enola, but by this point she’s more than capable of taking care of herself. Not that her older brothers believe that. Right, her brothers: One is Mycroft (Sam Claflin), who, well, I don’t know what he does, but he’s an ass with a mustache whose first and only and always and forever impulse is to send Enola to finishing school so she can pursue a proto-Handmaid’s Tale reality under the watch of a wicked schoolmistress (Fiona Shaw). The other is Sherlock (Henry Cavill), a detective of some renown, although he doesn’t have a voluptuous meerschaum, because it’s a movie about 1884 that’s made in 2020. Sherlock’s advice to Enola is to not get emotional about things, which, frankly, is shit, Sherlock.

So Enola packs up her certain je ne sais quoi and R-U-N-N-O-F-Ts to London, hoping to find Mum. She boards a train dressed like a boy and, before you know it, a love interest falls out of the luggage compartment. Lord Tewksbury, Marquess of Basilweather (Louis Partridge), whatever that means, has also R-U-N-N-O-F-T, and his rich family is so rich, his face is in all the papers. He seems important (probably because his family is rich), but then why does the shrewfaced man in the bowler hat seem to want him dead? What with this, that and the other thing, Enola and Tewksbury end up leaping from the train and making their way to the city, where Enola’s naivete of the big city ends up not being much of a concern, because she’s smart as all hell. Her concerns become twofold — employing her myriad skills to follow her mother’s forensic trail, and to make sure the highly attractive helpless boy-waif Tewksbury remains not dead.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: It’s Nancy Drew meets Sense and Sensibility meets Suffragette. And frankly, it makes the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies and Kenneth Branagh’s oddly popular Murder on the Orient Express reboot look even more like the snoozefests they are.

Performance Worth Watching: Millie Bobby Brown delivers the best direct-to-the-camera asides since Fleabag. She’s almost supernaturally magnetic here, and positively Portmanesque. The perfectly-fine-but-overrated Stranger Things only brushes the surface of what she can do.

Memorable Dialogue: Mycroft affirms his cretinous nature as he rummages through his mother’s books: “Oh good god. Feminism. Perhaps she was mad.”

Sex and Skin: Only the occasional fourth-wall-cracking deep-sigh as Enola feels a tingle for “Oh my Lord” Tewksbury.

Our Take: British period piece? Detective mystery? Cheeky asides to the audience? Well, at least it’s got feminism, we all thought as we pressed play on Enola Holmes — and soon found ourselves endlessly charmed by Brown, who you-go-girls this blah premise to life with big jolts of electric charisma. She all-that-and-a-bag-of-chips us into overlooking the movie’s episodic structure and sloppyplot third act, allowing us to love it, and yearn to spend more time with young Enola and her lovely, lovely mind.

It helps that director Harry Bradbeer and Jack Thorne’s screenplay — adapting Springer’s The Case of the Missing Marquess — set her up to succeed by maintaining a consistent tonal balance of wit and drama. Enola’s rebellion against the regressive stupidity of men and Victorian society is highly satisfying, stuff that audiences will devour in Costco quantities. She wields rich irony by disguising herself in the clothes of a woman of propriety; she can absorb a blow from a thug, and counterpunch just as hard; she stays a step ahead of her famous brother; she would never, ever, ever choose a boy over her independence. We have no choice but to raise our fists and cheer for her.

Our righteous heroine is surrounded by terrific performances. Bonham Carter makes the most of a handful of scenes, assuring that Mum’s presence is resonant in Enola’s actions. Claflin is lusciously loathsome. Cavill enjoys a subtle arc as Sherlock learns to embrace his sister’s intellectual might and show a few vapor trails of emotional affection (gasp, someone call a lawyer!). But nobody comes close to outshining Brown during her true coming-out party. Don’t call her spunky. Don’t call her plucky. Don’t call her intrepid. Just call her Ms. Holmes.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Enola Holmes confirms that Millie Bobby Brown is the real deal. I feel a sequel coming on, and would be a fool to protest.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Enola Holmes on Netflix