Enola Holmes

The dialogue is fast and witty, ably helping to create a constant sense of fun that is almost every minute of Enola Holmes. Enola often breaks the fourth wall, sometimes in the middle of a speech to a different character; it’s terrifically entertaining. Upon meeting Lestrade, Enola challenges him to a trivia match to see who knows Sherlock better; it’s downright hysterical.

It helps matters that the actors are perfectly cast. Millie Bobby Brown is most well-known for her role as Eleven on Stranger Things, and the fast-talking, quicker thinking, amused at herself, Enola allows the thespian to stretch her wings. She nails it. Brown is the perfect mix of spunky, fun, intelligent, and defiant to make the character believable. Brown also delivers significantly in the movie’s more dramatic moments, proving that she has quite the future ahead of her after her supernatural show ends.

As Sherlock, Cavill is calm, quiet, and excellent. The understated way he looks around a room, searching for clues, wonderfully shows off his intelligence. A conversation between him and Enola, with her hiding in a tree, asking why he never visited home, brings just enough pathos to form a dramatic emotional arc between the two of them. Claflin is just as good as the easy to hate Mycroft. It has been a while since Helena Bonham Carter has been this good. Despite getting, maybe, 20-minutes of screen time, she really brings forth the character’s rebellious spirit and zest for life. It helps that she shares impeccable chemistry with her onscreen daughter.

“…constant sense of fun…”

However, there is a problem with Enola Holmes, and it is the ending. I will not spoil things, but the final five minutes, give or take, do not work. Sherlock and Mycroft are having a discussion and then leave the common area they are at. While doing so, they pass by a young newsie. At that moment, Sherlock should have given that boy a specific item, and then the movie would fade to black. But, that is not what happens.

Instead, Sherlock walks on by, and smash cut to Enola receiving a visitor. This entire scene reeks of studio interference. Like, test audiences needed a bow on every plot thread, so a new ending was hastily written to pander to those needs. It is well-acted enough, but it is unnecessary and is not as satisfying as the filmmakers hoped it would be. It is the only blemish here, but it does knock the movie down a whole point.

Enola Holmes is an engaging, exciting mystery that the entire family will enjoy. The direction is spot on, the acting is brilliant, the plot is intriguing, and the cinematography is fantastic. But the ending is a letdown, not trusting audiences to be content with Enola’s arc. Still, it is elementary that audiences will fall in love with Enola Holmes and all it offers.