Enola Holmes Film Review

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Debuted on September 23rd, 2020, Netflix released a new original movie called Enola Holmes that has sparked popularity in the media world. Based on the series of young adult books by Nancy Springer, the movie, Enola Holmes, takes us on a whirlwind of a quest led by the main character, Enola, and her life as an independent sleuth and strong young woman.

In contrast to the Sherlock Holmes movies, this movie takes a look into his sister’s life, with Sherlock as a supporting character. The reason why people have never heard of Enola before in any of the Sherlock movies is because author Nancy Springer completely created the character herself! That means people don’t have to be concerned with the timeline consistency of any other Holmes film.

Cast

The incredible cast includes Stranger Things Millie Bobby Brown as Enola, Henry Cavill playing Sherlock, Sam Claflin as Mycroft, and Helena Bonham Carter playing Eudoria Holmes. In addition to the well known cast, you may see some unfamiliar faces such as the new up and coming actor, Louis Partridge, who plays the main supporting role to Enola, Viscount Tewkesbury.

These actors and actresses played their roles tremendously well. Millie Bobby Brown accentuated Enola’s charismatic and endearing personality that could have easily become a hassle to perfect. Henry Cavill portrays a warmer take on Sherlock, rendering more emotion. Sam Claflin executed the wonderfully horrid character of Mycroft Holmes well. All of the side characters played their roles with much passion, making the film even more captivating.

Plot

Although the acting was presumably amazing for their roles, the mystery itself was not as exciting. The film starts off as an anecdote of Enola and her mother’s relationship, when suddenly, her mother runs away on Enola’s sixteenth birthday without even notifying anyone. The plot began as a quest to find her mother, but later side tracked into Enola’s relationship with the runaway Lord Tewkesbury. Even though Enola and Tewkesbury were still on a journey in regards to Tewkesbury’s hitman after him, it totally railed off of the concept of finding her mother through this whole movie. We were hinted at with the idea that the mother’s disappearance dealt with politics and her connection to the suffrage movement around that time period, but that is all that was expressed to the audience.

The ending was a bit anticlimactic. There was not much of a dramatic ending at all, with Enola’s mother just randomly shows up in Enola’s room, where she has lived alone for a while. The predicament with Tewkesbury was quickly resolved, where he returned back home to his palace, and Sherlock and Mycroft are just in the town. Obviously, there were little scenes that made up for the whole ending, but it was somewhat of a let down, compared to the thrilling beginning of the film.

Rating

Overall, the movie, Enola Holmes, receives a 7.5/10. The cast played their roles extremely well, and the scenes were shot impressively. The fast paced shots and voice over narrative from Millie Bobby Brown (Enola) made the film quite more entertaining than the general plot. With Enola breaking the fourth wall a couple times, it made the audience feel like they were actually part of the movie. The film drew more attention towards the little relationship between Enola and Tewkesbury, and rarely acknowledged the disappearance of her own mother until the very end. Even though the plot lacked some creative insight, the whole movie itself was pretty enjoyable and amusing towards the mostly teen and young adult audience. Since the movie followed the series of novels, hopefully, we will see if there are future movie sequels to come.