Meet Enola Holmes - Sherlock's smarter sister

 

Sherlock Holmes is in the Guinness Book of Records as the most filmed literary character in history with more than 250 of his adventures on screen and counting.

Filmmakers are also fascinated with his family, older brother Mycroft has a recurring role in the Benedict Cumberbatch series, and the lesser known Sigerson is the hero of the underrated The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother (1975). Now we have another Holmes sibling – sister Enola – in this lively adaptation of the Enola Holmes series from Young Adult author Nancy Springer.

Enola (Millie Bobby Brown) is the youngest of the Holmes clan and has been raised by her mother Eudoria (Helena Bonham Carter). She has been raised either as an independent young woman or a wild child, depending on how you view things.

When she wakes up on her sixteenth birthday to discover that her mother has disappeared she is momentarily thrown off kilter. Older brothers Sherlock (Henry Cavill) and Mycroft (Sam Claflin) then announce they are on their way home. She is legally Mycroft’s ward and he is determined to have her raised as a young lady in a stern finishing school; Enola of course is having none of it.

There is a mystery here and if Sherlock is not interested then Enola is, and the game is very much afoot. She runs away, following her mother’s clues, and heads for London in the company of an equally young missing Marquess (Louis Partridge).

Enola Holmes is not the most challenging film you’ll come across, but it is a lively and engaging feminist romp and Millie Bobby Brown holds the attention as the heroine of the piece. Mostly this is done by breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience directly.

Incidentally can we stop calling this a Fleabag trope. It’s not, it’s been around since Lewis Gilbert used it in Alfie (1966) and is a staple in Modern Family and The Office. If anything, as used here, it’s a Harry Bradbeer trope – the director of Enola Holmes also directed Fleabag and he did it in Killing Eve too which suggests, rather than innovative, he might be a bit limited narratively.

The supporting cast is solid, including Fiona Shaw, Frances de la Tour and Adeel Akhtar. If Louis Partridge is a bit like a pound shop Timothee Chalamet as the missing marquess, the redoubtable Burn Gorman is reliably nasty as the heavy who is out to kill him and anyone else he can find.

That said there is one glaring error in casting with Claflin being cast as Cavill’s older brother despite being three years younger. The Holmes boys in truth are not well served by Jack Thorne’s script. Mycroft, normally portrayed as a Machiavellian genius, is a pompous prig here and Sherlock is similarly poorly served. He doesn’t really need to be there, apart from marquee value, and the world’s greatest detective is made to look something of a dullard especially at the end.

In common with most Netflix films Enola Holmes is a good twenty minutes too long but there is strong franchise potential here and I’m sure we will see more of her before too long