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Enola Homes - Millie Bobby Brown Shines |
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Enola Holmes,
a feature film released on Netflix in the fall of 2020 is a fun,
adventurous movie set in England during the 1800s and as the title might
suggest there is a connection to Sherlock Holmes and his older brother
Mycroft, but in name only. In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s books Mycroft was
referenced, but to our knowledge there was never any mention of a
younger sister of the two brothers. This fabulous, all ages film
directed by Harry Bradbeer stars now sixteen-year-old actress Millie
Bobby Brown, who was cast in the role in 2018 and also is one of the
named producers. By then Brown had already been twice nominated for an
Emmy Award and once for a Screen Actor’s Guild Award.
Henry Cavill is cast as Sherlock Holmes, Sam Claflin as the evil Mycroft
and Louis Partridge as Tewkesbury, a young member of the nobility who
becomes Enola’s friend, with hints of a budding teenage romance. In a
nice plot twist for a change, it is the young woman who is always
rescuing the young man, instead of the other way around. There are the
usual adversaries that one would expect, Miss Harrison, played by Fiona
Shaw who conspires with Mycroft Holmes to confine Enola to a finishing
school to make her a proper young lady and to drum out of her the sense
of independence that her mother had worked so hard to develop. Oh, we
forgot to mention, Mycroft, as the eldest now stands to inherit the
family’s estate and Enola’s mother has disappeared. Frances De La Tour
is the dowager, and David Bamber is the very evil Sir Whimbrel.
There are times in the film when Millie Bobby Brown’s character turns
and talks directly to the camera and by extension the audience that is
watching and you feel like she is actually talking to you one on one.
There are other times when she so completely owns her scenes that you
are stunned, and you are left wondering how on earth this young woman
has so mastered her craft at such an early age and how her character has
become such a capable detective, while in her teenage years, often
upstaging her famous brother.
Helena Bonham Carter, whose accolades we could extol here for days on
end is brilliant, as she portrays strength, tough love, tender love and
a rebel’s heart. The depiction of mother and daughter by Carter and
Brown is authentic and believable.
This is a film for literally all ages, and in fact you could sit a small
child, say six years and up down with you to watch the film and there is
absolutely nothing in it that you have to be concerned about.
We do not use a rating system at Riveting Riffs Magazine, but if we did
this film would be at the top of the list and again most of that is due
to the performances of Millie Bobby Brown and Helena Bonham Carter,
which is not to take away from the performance of any other members of
the cast, but really the characters for these two actresses are the
primary focus of the movie. They are also splendidly gifted actresses.
Now a word about Millie Bobby Brown. Do yourself a favor and go on
YouTube and watch interviews that she has given in the past. You will
find interviews with Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and others. She was
born in Málaga, Andalusia, Spain and lived there for the first four
years of her life, before her family moved to the United States and she
now splits her time between London, England and Atlanta, Georgia. At an
early age (it seems funny saying that about someone still only sixteen)
she was cast as Alice in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, in 2013
and she had a recurring role in the television series Intruders, the
following year. Her television appearances have been numerous, and she
rose to stardom portraying the character Eleven in the Netflix series
Stranger Things. She starred in Godzilla: King of the Monsters
and the just completed sequel Godzilla vs Kong. She has two more films
in the pre-production phase, The Girls I’ve Been and The Thing About
Jellyfish. In 2017 she signed a modelling contract and shortly after
her fifteenth birthday she was named by Time Magazine as the youngest
person ever among the top 100 most influential people in the world.
UNICEF also named her as their youngest ambassador to create an
awareness of and to advance children’s rights. Did we happen to mention
that she was also involved in the development of her own skin care line
and one that she wanted to ensure was accessible to people who did not
have an endless supply of money to spend on those types of products?
This is a link to
the trailer for the film Enola Holmes, starring Millie
Bobby Brown and Helena Bonham Carter.
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The
storyline of the film goes like this Sherlock is disinterested in his
family, as he is heavily focused on solving crimes in London, which is
not where Enola and her mother Eudoria Holmes live. The widow, Eudoria
is portrayed by British actress Helena Bonham Carter looks as beautiful
as ever. Her performance is both sublime and powerful.