Enola Holmes

This Netflix movie is very enjoyable despite its deviations from Sherlock Holmes canon. I've never read the original books by Nancy Springer, but the heroine is very likeable and clever, if a little naive at times. I was afraid that Helena Bonham Carter as the absent mother would be too quirky and wacky, but she was actually quite nice and used in small doses where appropriate. Wikipedia says the mother Eudoria left to live with the Romani, but this movie gives her a more compelling reason to disapear; she's a militant suffragist involved in making bombs, and no doubt thinks her daughter is safer without her.

Enola wakes on her 16th birthday in 1884 to find her mother gone without explanation. Her older brothers Mycroft and Sherlock come to the family estate, shocked to find it rundown, due to Eudoria having lied about upkeep expenses in order to squirrel money away for other purposes. Mycroft resolves to send Enola away to a finishing school, while tasking Sherlock to find their mother. The headmistress is modern enough to have a steampunk car, yet her ideas about women's education remain patriarchal and she even slaps Enola for talking back to her. Enola finds cryptic clues and money left by her mother, so she dresses up as a boy and runs away in the night. While escaping on a train to London, she meets another runaway, a young lord Tewksbury escaping his own family.

At first I feared that Tewksbury would be an irritating and stupid boy, but instead he's quite charming. He actually does know some useful, practical stuff, and also has progressive political opinions. The film mentions a Reform bill in Parliament to extend votes to all men, not just lords; there's no vote on women's suffrage yet, that being too radical to pass yet. Anyway, Enola tries to find her mother while avoiding Sherlock and Mycroft, and trying to solve Tewksbury's case because there's a mysterious assassin after him. It's a good adventurous romp along with some emotional moments. I like the feminism in this, not too overstated, but visible; the jujitsu teacher calls out Sherlock's privilege in not having to care about politics because he's not oppressed. Over the course of the movie, Sherlock comes to care enough and to see Enola's point of view enough to realize that he ought to be on her side, not just passively give in to Mycroft.

Some people will say that Sherlock is too handsome, but his chiseled jaw actually looks a lot like the illustrations by Frederic Dorr Steele, and John Barrymore I think had a similar profile when he played Holmes for years. Meanwhile Mycroft is depicted as thin and active enough to go traveling about, unlike the canon Mycroft who is an overweight recluse, and the founder of the Diogenes Club. In Enola Holmes, Mycroft is not only irritated about Eudoria lying to him about the household expenses for years, but he also seems to not have the same artistic genius as Sherlock; it's implied that he's jealous and bitter, leading to his complaints about Enola's upbringing. Whereas in Conan Doyle's stories Mycroft is smarter than Sherlock, just too lazy to go out and be a practical detective. I'm not sure if this characterization is from Springer's novels or something new for the movie.

My only real complaint about the movie is the lack of mention of Watson. At one point, Lestrade even claims that Sherlock "always works alone" instead of saying "He works with Watson, not with you or any other female assistant." Come on! At least have a line from Enola claiming that "Watson's so busy with his wife and his practice that Sherlock just hired me."