Enola Holmes (2020)

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This is, incredibly, the first and only film I’ve seen and blogged from the current decade. I suppose this isn’t really much of a surprise, with relatively few films being released in 2020. The times we’re living in remind me of the time of Shakespeare where plague closed the playhouses.

I enjoyed this little Netflix film, though. It’s an adaptation of a series of “Young Adult” novels by Nancy Springer, and it’s a revelation. Clever, fun, fourth wall-breaking to the point of our eponymous heroine frequently addressing the audience, this is a rather marvellous little film.

It helps that Millie Bobby Brown is such a charismatic and compelling lead- there's clearly a lot more to her than Eleven. Helena Bonham Cater s, inevitably, delightfully barmy. Henry Cavill is a bit wooden but you can't have everything, and it's good to see Burn Gorman as a solid baddie.

The conceit is bloody good; Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes have a much younger sister who is being raised in a solidly feminist way by their wonderfully radical mother- and there's a nice underlying subtext of electoral reform, including votes for women. The real-life Representation of the People Act of 1884 plays a big role in the plot. It's a shame Mycroft has to be retconned as the less clever sibling, and actively reactionary to boot, but you can see why this is necessary.

This is a yoyful, wonderful, metataxtual film which has much fun with the fourth wall, is enormously funy and has some rollicking adventure to boot. Superb stuff.