Enola Holmes
netflixEven amidst a week where the film schedule has, once again, been radically altered, Netflix still manages to provide some semblance of continuity. Following on from The Old Guard, Extraction and Project Power, Enola Holmes is the latest attempt by the streaming service to kickstart a franchise, even with resistance from the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle.
Based on Nancy Springer’s series of books, this anachronistic spin-off focuses on the legendary sleuth’s younger sister (Millie Bobby Brown). Her childhood was spent blissfully separate from her famous sibling (Henry Cavill), forming a close bond with her mother (Helena Bonham Carter) as they challenge each other both physically and intellectually. Whether it be deciphering knotty word puzzles, training in jiu-jitsu or reading classical texts, Enola is very much a teenager ahead of her time.
As she, and the film, likes to repeatedly point out, her name spelt backwards reads ‘alone’, and this is how she finds herself when her mother mysteriously disappears one morning. This event sees both Sherlock and Mycroft (a pantomimic Sam Claflin) return home, with the pair having different notions as to how their sister should be treated; Mycroft suggests enrolment at a local boarding school, whilst Sherlock is more ambivalent on the matter. Uncontented with the plans laid out for her, Enola outwits her brothers and ventures to London in search of their mother, accidentally becoming entangled in a case involving a young Viscount (Louis Partridge).
As opposed to standard Doyle fare, the case isn’t at the forefront of proceedings here, with more time understandably being devoted to a character whose relevance, in the eyes of some, will need to be established. Brown, in her first leading role, does a solid job for the most part, possessing a likeable charm with her various quips and pronounced facial expressions. With no Watson-like companion by her side, fourth-wall breaks are used to involve the audience as much as possible, with director Harry Bradbeer replicating the technique he used so effectively on Fleabag.
Unfortunately, his directorial style seems much more at home on the smaller screen, with the film’s recreation of Victorian-era London resembling BBC’s Ripper Street, itself a lesser version of Guy Ritchie’s take on the Holmes character. The script, penned by the increasingly busy Jack Thorne, is similarly lacklustre, trading the razor-sharp wit inherent in this narrative universe for standard period-drama fare. Much like his previous work on The Aeronauts and Radioactive, the over-reliance on exposition dumps and flashbacks rob the film of the little charm it has; one action scene, in particular, suffers greatly by the flitting between time-frames, leading to an over-edited sequence where a tense moment becomes an annoyance.
These stylistic choices are presumably a distraction for the paper-thin plot, which doesn’t make use of its intellectual central character. Instead of relying on her powers of deduction, most developments are made by solving anagrams and recontextualising personal memories, rendering the audience completely passive in the experience. Like the aforementioned fight scene, these sequences often involve cross-cutting between the past and the present, leading to a scenario where the script is constantly explaining itself as a result of the unclear visuals; the finale, boasting an obvious plot-twist, is so poorly lit it’s hard to make sense of anything.
The biggest crime is that, even after one outing – an exceedingly overlong one at 123 minutes – this franchise already feels tired. Utilising techniques cribbed from previous Holmes adaptations, the only positive quality is an endearing character who is, sadly, completely shackled by the creative crew. This unoriginality makes the legal issues of the film all the more confusing, with the Doyle estate proclaiming copyright has been violated due to Sherlock's “showing of emotion”; with this lawsuit and the quality of the film itself, suffice to say the Enola Holmes franchise is, in all likelihood, not afoot.