Details on the movie Enola Holmes

 

Certain characters — and therefore the unique, rich worlds they inhabit — have so captured the eye of audiences that Hollywood often revisits them, presenting new iterations on the extremely familiar material. Take Sherlock Holmes, the master detective concocted by author Arthur Conan Doyle within the 1800s. Sherlock is intelligent and inscrutable, and audiences like to watch him work. within a previous couple of years alone, Robert Downey, Jr. played Sherlock within the hit Sherlock Holmes film series, Jonny Lee Miller starred within the Sherlock CBS procedural drama Elementary, and Benedict Cumberbatch portrayed the idiosyncratic sleuth within the BBC-produced Sherlock. In 2020, Netflix added to the Sherlock mythology with Enola Holmes, which finds the detective's teenage sister (Millie Bobby Brown) in search of her missing mother.

Enola Holmes may be a mystery, so it's filled with clues, but not just ones that help Enola save the day. There are many clever allusions and references within the film which will be hard to identify. Here are a number of the more amusing and smaller morsels in Enola Holmes.

Enola Holmes maybe a family-friendly Fleabag

Enola Holmes is predicated within the Sherlock Holmes universe, created within the late 19th century by English author Arthur Conan Doyle. It takes place within the same Victorian-era London setting as Doyle's Sherlock books and stories while maintaining a distinctively modern feel. Enola Holmes operates from a feminist and female-centric perspective, told from the purpose of view of Sherlock's sister Enola. it is so feminist and female-centric that it's extremely like Fleabag, Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Emmy-winning, era-defining hit about the messy life of a young English woman handling grief, self-loathing, and family issues. The title character (portrayed by Waller-Bridge) constantly breaks the fourth wall and talks to the camera to deliver exposition, reflect on plot developments, and ridicule of others. Enola Holmes features its title character doing all those things, astutely keeping the audience well informed of her thoughts throughout the film.

The Fleabag connections to Enola Holmes run deeper than an off-the-cuff disregard for the fourth wall. The film was directed by Harry Bradbeer, who also helmed 11 episodes of Fleabag — a series which, like Enola Holmes, co-starred actor Fiona Shaw.

Sherlock sure maybe a super man

Sherlock Holmes was one of the western literary canon's first fictional characters turned cultural icons. Arthur Conan Doyle debuted the character in print with the story "A Study in Scarlet" in 1887. Just over 50 years later, another enduring, larger-than-life character made his introduction in a problem of Action Comics: Superman, an alien who involves Earth and becomes a flying, extra-strong, seemingly indestructible superhero.

Over the decades, both Sherlock and Superman are the centerpiece of various books, television shows, and films. last, Superman has figured prominently in movies like Justice League and Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice — both of which saw him portrayed by Henry Cavill. an equivalent actor co-stars in Enola Holmes, a replacement check out the Sherlock Holmes universe from the purpose of view of the famed detective's younger sister.

Cavill takes on a supporting role because of the supportive Sherlock, but when his character is announced and introduced early within the film, it's done so via a splashy montage explaining the man's many accomplishments and celebrity status. It's like the announcer's breathless description of Superman from the 1950s TV series Adventures of Superman. While the superhero is "faster than a speeding bullet" and "able to leap tall buildings during a single bound," Sherlock is lauded as a "famous detective, scholar, chemist, virtuoso violinist, expert marksman, swordsman, singlestick fighter, pugilist, and brilliant deductive thinker." He is, in other words, just about the Superman of the 19th century.

Enola Holmes goes to Eleven

Enola Holmes reimagines the mystery-solving world of Sherlock Holmes through the eyes of his teenage sister Enola. To preemptively answer the audience's question of "How have we never heard of Sherlock Holmes' sister before?" the film (and the books upon which it's based) explain that Enola is far younger than her previously fictionally established brothers Sherlock and Mycroft, raised on the family's remote country estate by their widowed mother.

It's a clever little bit of casting to put Brown within the role. The actor is best known for her role as tween-age telekinetic test subject Eleven on Netflix's Stranger Things. After escaping from a secret government institution, she falls under the care of small-town sheriff Jim Hopper (David Harbour). He becomes her de facto father but also has got to keep her safe from the forces who previously imprisoned her (and took advantage of her advanced superhuman abilities), so just the 2 of them sleep in Hopper's cozy, remote cabin within the woods outside of Hawkins, Indiana. Portraying the character of 11, a child bristling against parental control while keeping herself occupied reception call at the country, clothed to be an excellent thanks to preparing Brown for Enola Holmes. 

The wizarding world of Enola Holmes

While it's explicitly connected to the planet of Sherlock Holmes and his late 19th century adventures in crime-solving, Enola Holmes also boasts multiple links to a different franchise of English and literary origin a few male characters with mysterious and baffling abilities: the Harry Potter books and films.

Anagrams are a crucial plot device in Enola Holmes — the titular teen detective states early that her name is, fatefully, the word "alone" spelled backward. Later, when her mother disappears and uses ciphers as clues to her whereabouts, Enola uses Scrabble-like letter tiles to unscramble the letters and clarify the message. An anagram is additionally the tactic by which Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling reveals the origin of the series' villain, Voldemort. Harry Potter and therefore the Chamber of Secrets explains that the letters in "I am Lord Voldemort" are equivalent ones, rearranged, that appear in "Tom Marvolo Riddle," a former Hogwarts student who took a dark and evil path. He grows up to steer a dark army of wizards, among them Bellatrix Lestrange, portrayed within the Harry Potter movies by Helena Bonham Carter... who plays Eudoria Holmes in Enola Holmes, a movie written by Jack Thorne, co-author of the hit play Harry Potter and therefore the Cursed Child

Didn't Sherlock Holmes have a sister before? 

The central mystery of Enola Holmes concerns the sudden disappearance of Eudora Holmes (Helena Bonham Carter), the matriarch of the Holmes clan, mother of detective Sherlock, police consultant Mycroft, and budding mystery-solver Enola. Eudora's mysterious departure occurs on the morning of Enola's 16th birthday, and Sherlock and Mycroft return to the family's country home — partially to research, and partially to seem after their teenage sister.

Mycroft (Sam Clafin) is more annoyed than worried and comments upon his confusion over things, as he didn't know his mother was a "madwoman" and the way there was "no mental disease in our family." This whole situation connects Enola Holmes to a different non-canonical, modern-day reinterpretation of the Sherlock Holmes universe. On the BBC/PBS series Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch, it's revealed that the detective features a sister he never mentioned — and Eurus Holmes (Sian Brooke) is evil, imprisoned, and tries to kill Sherlock's assistant, John Watson. Like Enola, whose name is "alone" spelled backward, the institutionalized Eurus was also subjected to tons of alone time. Meanwhile, their uncommon first names are similar — Enola isn't that different from Eurus, which is additionally almost like Eudora, the name of Enola's mother.

Where's Watson? 

While Enola Holmes of Enola Holmes ventures into London to undertake to unravel the mystery of her mother's calculated disappearance, she finishes up trying to unravel another pressing conundrum: why her potential love interest the Viscount of Tewkesbury, Marquess of Basilwether (Louis Partridge), is on the run from his family and a violent man who keeps trying to kill him.

Presenting herself as a 22-year-old woman named May Beatrice Posey, she gains access to Basilwether by further pretending to be the assistant of Sherlock Holmes (who, because it happens, has already rejected the case). Her scheme is almost foiled upon the arrival of Inspector Lestrade (Adeel Akhtar), the Scotland Yard detective who is Sherlock Holmes' contact within the English police system. He calls out the so-called Miss Posey on her claim to be Holmes' assistant, stating that the detective works alone. this is not exactly true, however — Holmes may do his mystery-solving mostly in his own head, but he has got to work with Lestrade to get cases. Holmes additionally famously does have a helper, just not May Beatrice Posey — it's Dr. John Watson. this suggests that, within the Sherlock Holmes chronology, Enola Holmes takes place after Sherlock Holmes becomes the toast of London, but before he meets his assistant, the closest thing to a lover, and partner in crime-solving.

The references are afoot  

Though dozens of flicks, television shows, books, and stories, the planet of Sherlock Holmes has entertained millions for overflow 100 years. Enola Holmes is that the latest high-profile combat the literary creations that Arthur Conan Doyle delivered to life within the late 1800s. And albeit it focuses on a comparatively new character this world — Enola Holmes, created by author Nancy Springer for The Enola Holmes Mysteries — the movie pays homage, however subtle, to its predecessors. When Enola runs off to follow a lead on a case, a pivotal moment within the film, she declares, "The game is afoot!" this is often a phrase coined by Shakespeare but closely related to Enola's brother Sherlock, uttered when he became excited by development during a difficult-to-solve case.

One of the foremost famous and prolific onscreen portrayers of Sherlock Holmes is actor Basil Rathbone, who played the detective in 15 movies within the 1930s and 1940s. The people behind Enola Holmes threw out a nod to the star, using his given name as a part of a character's family name: Enola Holmes helps out the distressed Marquess of Basilwether. Rathbone starred in an adaptation of 1 the best-known Sherlock tales, The Hound of the Baskervilles. Enola Holmes shouted out its own mysterious dog — Dash, a toy the title character played with as a toddler.

How to tell when Enola Holmes is about

Dates flash onscreen quickly in Enola Holmes, so it is easy to miss exactly when the film's storyline takes place. Audiences with a minimum of a passing familiarity with the Sherlock Holmes stories can tell that the movie, like most other fiction about the character, takes place in London during the reign of Victoria within the Industrial Age, sometime between the 1800s and therefore the turn of the 20th century. a few small clues from the political climate that forms a backdrop of the plot of Enola Holmes indicate to the audience that the film takes place precisely in 1884.

The two cases Enola Holmes pursues — the disappearance of her mother, and therefore the reason for the attacks on the Marquess of Basilwether — ultimately dovetail. Enola's mother Eudora flies for London to assist persuade Parliament's House of Lords to pass a sweeping, progressive law that will expand the voting franchise. The Marquess, meanwhile, inherited a seat within the House of Lords from his deceased father, and parties against that new law aim to form sure he doesn't choose favor of it — specifically by killing him before he has the prospect. Not many details of this law are provided, but Enola Holmes speaks of the Representation of the People Act of 1884, also called the 1884 Reform Act, which expanded voting rights throughout the UK.

Enola and therefore the Marquess are kindred spirits 

The plot of Enola Holmes grows more complicated when Enola, who becomes a newly minted detective out necessarily when her beloved mother goes missing, gets sidetracked with things involving the ridiculously named Viscount Tewkesbury, Marquess of Basilwether (Louis Partridge). After Enola discovers him hidden during a piece of bags in her train compartment, they get down the moving locomotive together to flee a hitman trying to kill the young nobleman. Enola vows to assist determine why exactly her new friend may be a boy with a bounty on his head, and here and there she abandons her just-as-pressing quest to locate her mother.

It's a little curious about why Enola Holmes would take this path, and something as simple as a crush on the Marquess feels far too basic for such a self-assured, independent character. the important reason Enola Holmes helps the Marquess is that she sees tons of herself in him. By helping him, she's helping herself, in away. After poking around his family's estate, she finds the Marquess' treehouse refuge, and it's clear that his happiest moments as a toddler were spent within the countryside, bopping around the woods outside the well-appointed home of an upscale, prominent family. Enola experienced an identical upbringing — she was a "wild child," raised during a country home of the rich, prominent Holmes family.