Enola Holmes review, Culture Whisper
It’s frustrating when a movie plot crumbles under the strength of its main character, especially if she’s played by Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things). In Enola Holmes, Brown stars in and co-produces this Netflix film adaptation of Nancy Springer’s YA novels – following the lesser-known teenage sister of Sherlock (Henry Cavill) and Mycroft (Sam Claflin).
Initially, there’s a lot to enjoy in Enola (‘alone’ spelt backwards). She’s raised by her rebellious suffragette mother Eudoria – all too briefly played by Helena Bonham Carter – to be a literate, athletic, self-sufficient young woman.
After 16 years spent inside a country house, smothered by plant life, she has little experience of the outside world. The notions and expectations of being a ‘lady’ in 19th-century Britain are quite alien to her, and she never skips an opportunity to mock them. When her mother suddenly disappears, Enola faces this patriarchal system when she travels to London – seeking Eudoria via anagrammatic codes.
