Holmes goes on holiday in Netflix’s latest.
If the Enola Holmes movies were to have been released when I was a tween, I probably wouldn’t have watched anything else. The period setting, the mystery, the will-they-won’t they. It was like Netflix was able to dive into the mind of 12 year old me and extract a movie custom designed with a clever teenage heroine I could only aspire to be. (As it happens, as a teenager I was too busy rewatching the director’s commentary of Twilight or the same three BBC Sherlock episodes so less said about reality the better.) So when the most recent instalment of the Enola Holmes trilogy popped on Netflix earlier this month, my inner tween let out a ‘sqweeee’ and I sat down to watch.
This latest movie sees our eponymous protagonist (played by Millie Bobby Brown) about to marry Viscount Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge) on the island of Malta. However when Sherlock goes missing, Enola must set out to find her older brother, and perhaps uncover a conspiracy, and something else, as she does it.
These movies are always a lot of fun, and this one is no exception. Millie Bobby Brown’s Fleabag-esque looks to camera provide a fun novelty and her witty asides provide comic relief that if not causing you to outwardly laugh will at least have you having a chuckle under your breath. The performances are fun, with a cast of returning characters who are enjoyable in every respect. Additionally, the relationship between Enola and Partridge’s Tewkesbury has grown into a more overtly romantic one, a sensible choice reflecting how the leads and target audiences are now a little older. It’s a good caper, and is enjoyable even if it does feel like it hits The Gang Goes Abroad trope a little hard.
If you like editing then you are in luck: this film has a lot of it. Where different iterations of Holmes has different ways of showing his deductive skills (Guy Richie’s slow mo, BBC Sherlock’s text on screen, Basil Rathbone’s lengthy exposition), Enola Holmes uses flashbacks and voice overs and little illustration graphics. Which works… to a point. While the average Netflix user scrolling through their phone while watching this movie may benefit from the regular repetition of scenes and dialogue as Enola pieces together different parts of her mystery, I couldn’t help but feel like I was being hit over the head with the same pieces of information. Resulting in less of a ‘aha’ moment as all the pieces slot together, but a ‘yes we get it please stop going over it’ moment as the story reaches its climax. And while some aspects of the plot could be taken out of ‘The Problematic Nature of the British Empire for Dummies’ it serves as a good springboard for younger viewers to perhaps start their own research.
But it’s fun, it’s fashionable, and it doesn’t let being in set in the late Victorian age stop it from showing some wonderful (if not anachronistic) outfits. Tweenage me would love it, and really, isn’t that what movies are all about? Delighting our inner tween?
Subjective – 3
Objective – 3
Tesni Jones – 09/07/26
Cinemacaw: Taking flight through film. 
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