“There are more EnolaHolmes books, and Millie Bobby Brown’s performance is so delightful that I do hope Netflix makes more of these”
Millie Bobby Brown in Enola Holmes. Photo: LEGENDARY It will come as no surprise to anyone to learn that Sherlock Holmes’s headstrong teenage sister, Enola Holmes, doesn’t show up anywhere in Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories or novels; the character was created by novelist Nancy Springer in 2006. Doyle himself was a compassionate and occasionally progressive fellow, but he also had a Victorian fondness for propriety and empire.
As Enola, Brown brings a supercharged exuberance to the part of a 16-year-old who, after years of being home-schooled in literature, history, science, and combat by her independent-minded mother , discovers one day that dear old mum has gone missing.
I’m not sure what constitutes a spoiler at this point, partly because the film plays so fast and loose with the story and its subplots that none of it really seems to matter. On the train to London, Enola runs into a handsome young lord, the Viscount Tewkesbury , who is fleeing from his family. She also learns about a controversial reform bill that’s set for a vote in Parliament .
Again, though, the narrative is merely window dressing. The real attraction here is Brown’s turn as Enola. The character’s insistent lightheartedness might seem easy to pull off, but it’s not: With her constant addresses to the camera — from an underwater wink while a baddie tries to drown her, to a cheekily grandiloquent reveal of her identity to us while she attempts to go undercover as a widow — Enola could get real annoying real quick.
That’s not always enough to keep the film from sagging in parts. For starters, it seems to slow to a crawl whenever Enola is off the screen, which thankfully isn’t often. As the pretty-boy nobleman who becomes the object of our heroine’s fascination, Partridge is about as expressive as a radish. Cavill is a talented actor, but his ripped Sherlock — with his bulging muscles, powerful jaw, and Man of Steel cowlicks — isn’t really given anything meaningful to do, which I guess is kind of funny.
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