Enola Holmes 2 film review: Holmes-verse just got livelier with Millie Bobby Brown’s new caper

Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, Louis Partridge, Adeel Akhtar, David Thewlis, Helena Bonham Carter 

Director: Harry Bradbeer

Language: English with Hindi audio option

Holmes-verse is here to stay,  Enola Holmes 2  makes it abundantly clear. Henry Cavill as Sherlock Holmes returns in sister Enola’s universe with a greater slice of the action, and his increased participation in her new adventure is a wild twist of imagination. The flip side becomes obvious, too. Mille Bobby Brown’s Enola Holmes isn’t emerging from her illustrious brother’s shadow just yet, although she does enough and more in her latest screen outing to stake claim as one of the most exciting sleuths in the world of contemporary fiction. The film leaves enough hints where the reorganised world of the Holmes is headed. We’re waiting for “Holmes and Holmes”.

In Enola Holmes 2, returning screenwriter Jack Thorne and director Harry Bradbeer cash in on the fan base the first film built, polishing a few rough edges to make the protagonist and her world even more lovable. You realise watching the sequel that Enola Holmes on film clicks as a young adult heartthrob because the franchise retains crucial personality traits that author Nancy Springer gave to the character in her original book series. Unlike the messed-up Nancy Drew experiments, Thorne and Bradbeer haven’t overtly discarded the essential Enola Holmes in a bid to reinvent her for the screen.

Beyond her knack at cracking crime, Enola’s journey through the two films has been marked by self-exploration and grit. These qualities let the target young adult audience base easily identify with her, an aspect that had already received a boost with the casting of Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown in the title role. If the first film of the franchise showed how Enola uncovers secret codes her mother left in flower cards to discover a path in life beyond what brothers Mycroft and Sherlock had decided for her, the sequel works as a coming-of-age thriller where she learns to deal with the struggles of career and adulthood.

In the new film Enola strives to carve her identity as a professional detective, the career calling she chose defying her brothers’ intention of sending her to finishing school. Enola wants to join the pantheon of great detectives, like her brother Sherlock. She wants to “be his equal” and be “worthy of the Holmes name”. However, it’s the 1880s and life is no cakewalk for a young female detective who opens an agency. Clients are hard to come by. Twist in her story appears in the guise of a poor girl named Bessie Chapman (Serrana Su-Ling Bliss) who works at a matchstick factory. The girl tells Enola her sister Sarah, also a worker at the factory, has gone missing. The young sleuth takes the case and, as she digs deep with her probe, unearths a far more sombre plot around the disappearance.

Unlike many sequels made for the streaming space, Enola Holmes 2 doesn’t cut costs. The adventure is amped up compared to the first film, supported by bigger and snazzier production values. As glossy VXF work reconstructs late 19th century London down to details, Thorne pens enough action and thrills for Enola to ensure the film remains entertaining all through its runtime of a little over two hours. Enola Holmes 2 has primarily been written to regale young adults but it works for audiences cutting across age groups mainly because the film uses its production assets well to balance an authentic milieu and realistic context with the larger-than-life drama.

Cavill’s casting as Sherlock Holmes was always a smart one, it has enabled the makers to tap into the Hollywood star’s global popularity while expanding the fan base of the Enola Holmes franchise. Cavill’s continuing binge as Sherlock makes good business sense for Holmes-verse in the same way as superhero crossovers do for MCU or DCEU. Over the two films of this series, Cavill has been prone to lend a tad more glamour to fiction’s most famous detective than the character would demand but he is highly enjoyable to watch, and definitely the best thing about the cast. In the sequel, Sherlock Holmes’ presence is cleverly justified because a difficult case he is working on seems to be connected with Enola’s mystery of the missing girl. Thorne has written Sherlock intelligently into Enola’s world, and the focus on using the more famous Holmes men to highlight Enola’s struggle against chauvinism of the era continues in the sequel.

Far from appearing preachy, the undercurrent socio-political commentary hinting at sexism only helps Enola appear gutsier as a protagonist. She is not hesitant to exchange notes with Sherlock while solving her case (which gives Bradbeer and company a chance to take the story to 221B Baker Street more than once, much to the delight of fans). With passage of time, Enola would seem more mature than the first time around. She is less restless, too, although never missing out on her trademark pluck. It is almost as if Enola now understands the balance between her value as an individual and the significance of family ties.

The adventure is played to the gallery, executed to cater unadulterated merriment. Despite a plot based in the 1880s, the storytelling imagines Enola as a character that suits the mindset of GenNow youngsters. The screenplay draws its backdrop from the 1888 matchgirls’ strike of London but director Bradbeer avoids getting into complicated details about the historic event, and neither does he delve into darker aspects associated with the strike. Bradbeer’s love for letting his heroines speak into the camera is only too well known — recall his hit series, Fleabag. In Enola Holmes 2, the filmmaker puts the technique to witty use.

Enola Holmes 2 works because the film looks beyond Sherlock Holmes while drawing interesting plot points. The film, for instance, manages to squeeze in Sherlock’s arch enemy Moriarty into the screenplay with an ingenious spin. Sherlock regular Inspector Lestrade makes an appearance, too, while the veteran actor David Thewlis is impressive as ever in the role of Superintendent Grail. The narrative creates interesting spaces for Helena Bonham Carter to reappear as Sherlock and Enola’s mother Eudoria while Louis Partridge makes a handsome comeback as Enola’s crush, the budding politician Viscount Tewkesbury.

Lavishly mounted and feistily acted out, Enola Holmes 2 is an old-school family entertainer — the sort that Hollywood hardly makes these days. Its protagonist blends seamlessly with the vintage mainstream extravaganza that the film toasts and yet stays in sync with modernday sensibilities. Parting tip: Don’t miss the mid-credits scene.

Vinayak Chakravorty is a critic, columnist, and film journalist based in Delhi-NCR.

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