Enola Holmes

 Enola Holmes (2020)

IMDB: 6.7

Cast: Millie Bobby Brown (as Enola Holmes), Henry Cavill (as Sherlock Holmes), Sam Claffin (as Mycroft Holmes), Louis Partridge (as Tewkesbury), Helena Bonham Carter (as Eudoria Holmes), Fiona Shaw (as Miss Harrison)

    'Enola' is 'alone' spelt backwards. It also is the name of Sherlock and Mycroft's little sister. The movie is about Enola's mother disappearing and her running away from home on a quest to find her mother which results in her bothers trying to find her. She wears disguises every step of the way in order to hide from her clever brothers and she meets Tewkesbury along the way. The movie takes a turn when Enola realises there are people trying to kill Tewkesbury, and decides to solve the mystery of this situation while also saving him.

    Personal Thoughts: I will start off by commenting on the negatives and then I'll come back to the positives. First of all, I liked the movie, it has a different tone than all the other Sherlock Holmes movies as Sherlock Holmes isn't the main character here. It had feminist undertones, which is nice. Although I have come across better ways of delivering this kind of message in movies like Little Women. For some reason, it felt like Enola was portrayed as an exception among girls, which in today's society corresponds to being 'not like other girls'. If you don't know what it is, it's basically a trend started on social media to demonstrate how someone lacks stereotypical feminine qualities to imply they're somehow "better" than the rest of the girls. She is essentially stripped off from most qualities women in those times had. All those qualities are portrayed as despicable and restricting acts throughout the movie. The only times we see Enola interacting with girls is when she goes to the 'lady school' where they teach girls to be lady-like and she immediately hates it. Now, I think it is okay to hate these sorts of things, it is quite a boring concept to have a school for teaching how to laugh and drink tea after all, but I just didn't like that that was the only interaction she had with girls. I liked that there were other female characters that supported the idea of portraying women as strong but I feel like women who don't do jiu-jitsu and constantly go undercover as boys also need recognition in movies. Another problem I had was with Millie Bobby Brown being Eleven in Stranger Things. I kept associating Enola with Eleven and essentially thought that her acting and the characters were a bit too similar as they were both the main characters who were powerful girls living in men's world and we were being reminded of that the whole time. I think her acting just doesn't really do it for me. That being said, she's only sixteen and is very successful and I really enjoyed watching her as Eleven, at least she had a tiny bit of positive interaction with another female character in that show towards the end.

    Sherlock was way hotter than any other Sherlock I've seen on TV, which I will get criticism for, however, I didn't like this Sherlock's personality. He just didn't have that awkward genius Sherlock-ness. I'm used to Sherlock referring to himself as a sociopath, not a caring family member. It was just too big of a difference for me to get used to if I'm being honest. He just disappeared into the background for me but that might just be the effect of him barely having any dialogue with anyone. In addition to that, Mycroft was a pretty annoying, two-dimensional character. Most characters were pretty two-dimensional when I think back to it. This isn't a Marvel movie, not everyone has to be portrayed as villains or heroes.

    Now, I know I've just spent two paragraphs complaining about the negatives of the movie but I actually really liked it. I wouldn't say this movie is problematic, I can only say that there were small things that annoyed me as with every movie and if you bare with me, I'll get to the positives which make up for the negatives. The cinematography was nice, the whole idea of making a movie about Enola was nice and there were multiple actresses that I liked in it. Another thing I really liked was seeing Tewkesbury. I don't know who the kid who's playing Tewkesbury is but he's the most adorable, genuinely nice and emotional actor I've seen in a while and that says a lot. Whenever he looked at Enola I just melted a little. His little teardrop at the end, his genuine love for the girl, all of it made the movie for me. There's just something about seeing nice guys being in love that makes my day better. Every emotion he had was valid and encouraged (We have to protect Tewkesbury at all cost).

    In conclusion, I loved the relationship between Tewkesbury and Enola and you could even just watch it for that. The plot, the cinematography and everything was quite nice. I realised I haven't mentioned Helena Bonham Carter's performance, which was good of course, but I have the same problem I have with Millie Bobby Brown. I always imagine her a bit like her character in Harry Potter which makes things a little creepy if I'm being honest. I loved Fiona Shaw's performance, I have always loved her performances, especially in Killing Eve. To briefly touch upon the negative things I said about Enola's character, you don't have to isolate the character from other females to make her better than them, you don't have to constantly mention she doesn't know how to do embroidery for her to be original. To me, knowing how to do embroidery is as original as knowing how to fight when it's cleverly written. I wish these character traits were treated more casually that I could relate more to Enola.

P.S: Don't mind all the negative things I'm saying, I liked this movie, I really did, I just usually rant a lot about these things :D

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