Enola Homes
3 3/4 Pretzels
Y’all know I’m a straight up sucker for a good mystery so I was enticed to watch Enola Holmes on Netflix this week. Had I known that they would cancel Glow, Teenage Bounty Hunters, and I Am Not OK With This just a few days later I would have used that time to toilet paper Netflix’s house. Enola Holmes stars Millie Bobby Brown as Sherlock’s little sister, Henry Cavill as far more ripped and less drug addled Sherlock, and Helena Bonham Carter as their Mom, Eudoria.
As the story goes, the Holmes boys moved out right after Enola was born leaving their mom the freedom to raise baby Enola to do judo, play tennis in the house, and blow things up with science. It’s exactly how I imagine HBC would home school a child in real life. Truly, Enola’s childhood was enchanting but one day she wakes up to discover that her mom has peaced out to do feminist spy stuff without a word or warning. This leaves Enola just as bereft as anyone would be after having been abandoned by Helena Bonham Carter-SO BEREFT- so she calls her brothers to come home and find their mom but Sherlock says that Momma Holmes appears to have ghosted them all for good, and he doesn’t mean she did pottery all sultry like, he means she ain’t coming back.
That leaves Enola as Mycroft’s ward but he isn’t cool to his ward like Batman would be. Enola does not get a nickname and a costume. Nooooo. Mycroft plans to send her off to a finishing school run by Mrs. Dursley. Since Mycroft is a dillhole Enola follows a series of clues that their mom left and sneaks away to London hot on momma’s trail. On the way she runs into a member of Victorian One Direction who has also decided to run away from home by hopping the same train as Enola. A villan is trying to murder this kid for reasons that are probably political but I believe are deep down related to the boy’s utter lack of personality. Kids a total drip.
Enola ends up spending the rest of the movie trying to save Ye Olde Harry Stiles, find her beloved radical feminist mother, and avoid getting shipped off to Mrs. Dursley’s School for Future Stepford Wives. Will these wealthy white children survive on their own? Will HBC teach me how to blow things up with science? What does a ward have to do to get an underground lair around here?
None of these questions are answered in this film but it’s still fun. The look of it is gorgeous and Millie Bobby Brown is charming as hell. There’s this running bit where Enola looks to camera and talks to the audience that a weaker actor couldn’t pull off.
The movie drags near the end but I would recommend it if you just want a fun thing to watch on a Wednesday night. I think I would be madly in love with this movie if I was a kid. It’s made for 6-14 year olds who will idolize Enola and watch it with the fervency that I watched Adventures in Babysitting when I was a kid.
Enola Holmes is far more appropriate and it’s based on a series of books by Nancy Springer so if you or someone you know loves to read words about teen sleuths there’s a whole series of entertaining stories about a brilliant and obstinate firecracker of a detective to get in to. Hooray teen sleuths! I love ’em. Also, Enola is Alone spelled backwards which is a prominent part of the story that seems way more important to the writers than it does to the script. Maybe they just love sister super group Heart? Yeah. How could the not.
Holland + Harper Productions 