Witty, precocious, and an utter delight to watch, Enola Holmes, Sherlock’s younger sister, is the latest on-screen adaptation of the weather-beaten character. Like every Sherlock that has come before her, Enola is determined to be her own person and has a striking genius that threatens conventions.
Enola is raised, schooled, and trained by her brilliant, somewhat radical mother Eudoria, played wonderfully as always by Helena Bonham-Carter, in near isolation in Victorian England. Though she doesn’t go to school, Enola channels her inner Jane Austen heroine by reading every book in the town library. She also spends her mornings learning jujitsu, history, and beekeeping, and performing science experiments with her mother. That is until she wakes up one morning to find that Eudoria has vanished.
We make the acquaintance of a brooding Henry Cavill and an uptight Sam Claflin as Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes, respectively. Mycroft intends to send Enola to finishing school, but as you can imagine, our heroine has plans of her own. She takes off to London in search of her mother, attired in pre-teen Sherlock’s tweed ensemble and mariner’s cap, the first of many disguises.
Millie Bobby Brown owns the screen, to no surprise. She's as charismatic and brilliant as the character demands, and you never tire of her. She’s equally charming in her Victorian skirts and gardener’s breeches and there couldn’t have been a more perfect casting for the young Holmes.
Henry Cavill on the other hand is a touch too demure and soft-spoken to fit Sherlock’s shoes. We've gotten used to seeing the variants of Sherlock as genius psychopaths, not coy and hunky, so it comes across as a little unnatural. Sam Claflin pulls off a cantankerous Mycroft with ease and a moustache with the power to dash a hundred women’s feminist dreams.
The adventure steadily sweeps you up as the plot thickens. Enola decrypts her mother’s clues with the young Viscount Tewkesbury in tow, who himself has a murderer on his trail. Meanwhile, Mycroft enlists Lestrade’s help in his undertaking to turn Enola into a ‘proper Victorian woman’. Sherlock lounges against a tree.
In the hunt for Eudoria, you expect a classic Holmes-style chase riddled with mind-boggling clues adding up to a stunning reveal, but the film disappoints in that regard. There are hints to a larger, more meaningful plot concerning the suffragette movement, but it doesn’t quite get there either. Several plot points seem to suspend momentarily in the air but soon hang limp and lead nowhere. The film glosses over a ton of details.
Ultimately, to call it a mystery movie would be a misnomer. The supposed edge-of-your-seat moments lack punch and don’t really deliver. It doesn’t challenge or trick the viewer the way a good mystery would. That being said, it certainly is a fun adventure and the talented cast makes it a worthwhile watch.
Comentarios