Review: Millie Bobby Brown's spunky 'Enola Holmes' is worthy of Sherlock's good name
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The game is pleasantly afoot yet again, with a new super-sleuth worthy of her forebears.
Directed by Harry Bradbeer (âKilling Eve,â âFleabagâ), the girl-powered action-adventure âEnola Holmesâ (â â â out of four; rated PG-13; streaming Wednesday on Netflix) introduces Sherlockâs spunky teen sister into the storied detectiveâs screen legacy. âStranger Thingsâ breakout Millie Bobby Brown lends smarts and charm to the title punch-throwing, clue-finding wild child in a clever if overlong coming-of-age quest thatâs all about embracing change instead of stuffy sameness.
Set in 1884, the movie unfurls in an England on the precipice of a new century, with womenâs suffrage an important cause and a reform bill on the docket in London that could expand voting rights. At the country estate where she lives, however, Enola isn't part of that world â sheâs homeschooled by her eccentric mother, Eudoria (Helena Bonham Carter), in the wonders of jiujitsu, indoor tennis and reading the entire encyclopedia (and every book in sight).
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On the morning of her 16th birthday, Enola wakes up to find her mom has disappeared, though she's left some clues for the youngster to find. Enolaâs long-absent big brothers, snooty Mycroft (Sam Claflin) and world-famous Sherlock (Henry Cavill), arrive to investigate the matter, and Mycroft intends on sending Enola to finishing school to be a proper âlady.â Horrified by the thought, Enola escapes, hops on a train to London to find her mom and becomes embroiled in a whole other mystery when she meets young Lord Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge), a runaway marquess whoâs being pursued by a murderous villain (Burn Gorman) in a bowler hat.
Written by Jack Thorne (âHarry Potter and the Cursed Childâ) and based on Nancy Springer's young-adult books, âEnolaâ borrows certain aspects from the recent Robert Downey Jr. âSherlock Holmesâ movies and TVâs popular modern-day âSherlockâ with Benedict Cumberbatch, but thankfully itâs not a female-friendly reboot of 1985's âYoung Sherlock Holmes.â
Enola is definitely her own Holmes, a talented teen who exudes a certain confidence that often gets her into sticky situations. Sheâs never out of any fight, though, which goes a long way toward explaining her determined personality, and her inner thoughts come through in many humorous and revealing asides to the camera, breaking the fourth wall a la âFleabagâ and giving a freshness to the Holmes brand.
While Sherlock definitely takes a back seat to his sibling as a supporting character, Cavillâs take on the iconic role is both complementary and different from the familiar. This detective puts up a bit of the cool, calculating exterior that weâre used to â and thereâs a bruising quality that Cavill brings with his frame and filmography (he is Superman, after all) â yet his interactions and reconnection with Enola knock down that wall and reveal a warmhearted big lug. Brown and Cavill have great chemistry and their dynamic is the most fun of the film, as Sherlock lives for the times when his little sister gets one over on him.
âEnola," which weaves in real-life history (in this case, Britainâs Representation of the People Act of 1884), also offers Netflix a potential franchise that's well-suited to Brown (whoâs also a producer on the film) and lets her do something fun other than battle 1980s interdimensional monsters. A British girl whoâs the same age as her onscreen character, Brown offers a youthful and enthusiastic authenticity much like Tom Holland's Spider-Man â sure, you could get an older actor to play that part but you canât beat the real thing. All the female characters in âEnolaâ pop, though, from Carterâs off-the-wall mysterious matriarch to Susan Wokomaâs martial-arts instructor (who takes no guff from A-list detectives).
Itâs rather elementary: Young women yearning for an action heroine of their own get one with âEnola Holmes,â a problem-solving youngster we all could use more of in our streaming lives.