The sleuthing siblings are back, albeit sans one. Sherlock Holmes and Enola Holmes. We first met Enola when Nancy Springer created her character and spun a seven-part pastiche series. Two years back Netflix adapted it and now we are into its second season. While in the first it was more of the making of Enola Holmes, this time she has a proper case from start to finish to crack.
In the second season as well, director Harry Bradbeer transports us back to the perfectly recreated Victorian era where a young Enola (Millie Bobby Brown) is striving hard to join the pantheon of great detectives and be worthy of the Holmes name burnished by her elder brother Sherlock (Henry Cavill).
She gets a case of a missing girl called Sarah Chapman who works in a matchbox factory. She is hired by Sarah’s sister Bessie Chapman played by a promising Serranna Su-Ling Bliss.
While solving the case Enola gets entangled in it and is instead wrongly arrested for murder. She is sent to jail till Eudoria Holmes, her mother, (usually reliable Helena Bonham Carter) blasts the jail walls and frees her.
For the uninitiated, Enola is ‘Alone’ spelled backward. However, Enola is not at all alone when it comes to solving the case of the missing matchgirl. As she is still wet behind her ears, she gets all the help from her brother too. In fact, their cases turn out to be intertwined, and in the end, cracking it is a joint venture. Lord Viscount Tewkesbury played by Louis Partridge is also always around when Enola is in any problem.
Enola is Miss Fisher meets Miss Marple. She is shown to have the skills of Miss Marple and the quirkiness of Miss Fisher. However, in an attempt to convey that flavour some scenes are too juvenile. The suspense unveils as an anti-climax. Moreover, using the backdrop of the matchgirls’ strike as a divertissement is disappointing. It was a turning point in the fight for women’s rights and needed to be treated with more maturity.
However, the scenes depicting Enola and Sherlock and Enola and Tewkesbury are entertaining and a bright spot in this otherwise mundane mystery film. Both Millie Bobby Brown and Louis Partridge play their age and deliver decent performances. Henry Cavill doesn’t get much to do here.
Going by the title of the film, ‘Enola Holmes 2’, it can be safely presumed that we will have more of this young adult fiction series. Till we get the next part wherein Enola may come of her own, and the story is not treated with kid gloves, ‘Enola Holmes 2’ is playing on Netflix.
