Enola Holmes Review: Great movie for the whole family

While searching for her missing mother, intrepid teen Enola Holmes uses her sleuthing skills to outsmart big brother Sherlock and help a runaway lord.

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Enola Holmes Review: Great movie for the whole family

While searching for her missing mother, intrepid teen Enola Holmes uses her sleuthing skills to outsmart big brother Sherlock and help a runaway lord.

We are supported by our audience, this post may contain affiliate links. See our affiliate disclosure for more details.

Visually Reviewed rate Enola Holmes a 7.5/10

7.5/10

Quick Summary

Enola Holmes includes a bit of everything: mystery, action, romance, history, and activism. It makes for a great family movie with a nice ending that the entire family will enjoy. Millie Bobby Brown is brilliant from start to finish, her cheekiness and youthful enthusiasm throughout makes this movie all the more enjoyable to watch. With this incredible display of talent, it’s clear Millie Bobby Brown is becoming a young heroine to inspire the next generation.

Enola Holmes

When Enola Holmes-Sherlock’s teen sister-discovers her mother missing, she sets off to find her, becoming a super-sleuth in her own right as she outwits her famous brother and unravels a dangerous conspiracy around a mysterious young Lord.

Release Date: 23 September 2020
Length: 2h 3m
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Mystery
Parental Rating: PG-13
Director(s): Harry Bradbeer
Writer(s): Jack Thorne (Movie), Nancy Springer (Book)
Star(s): Millie Bobby Brown, Sam Claflin, Henry Cavill
Official Website: Netflix / Enola Holmes
Enola Holmes movie poster

Release Date:
23 September 2020
Length:
2h 3m
Genre:
Adventure, Drama, Mystery
Parental Rating:
PG-13
Director(s):
Harry Bradbeer
Writer(s):
Jack Thorne (Movie), Nancy Springer (Book)
Star(s):
Millie Bobby Brown, Sam Claflin, Henry Cavill
Official Website:
Netflix / Enola Holmes

Enola Holmes trailer

Where to watch Enola Holmes

Enola Holmes review: Our thoughts

Based on the best-selling book series by Nancy Springer, the director Harry Bradbeer works with an amazing cast to create an entertaining, engaging, and playful family-friendly movie with a positive message.

Millie Bobby Brown, best known for her role as “Eleven” in Netflix’s Stranger Things, plays the imaginative, radiant, and cheeky young Enola Holmes in this Sherlock Holmes spinoff. At the start of the movie, Enola notes that her name spelt backwards is “alone”, and she very much was alone growing up. Enola has spent her whole life growing up alone in the countryside, raised single-handedly by her mother following the death of her father and the departure of her two older brothers, Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes.

On Enola’s 16th birthday, she awakens to find that her mother has disappeared, leaving behind a series of cryptic clues that could point to towards her whereabouts. With the return of her two brothers, one of which is set on sending her off to a finishing school to make her “acceptable for society”, Enola must out-smart her brothers and solve the mystery of her mother’s disappearance all by herself.

Enola Holmes review
Enola Holmes, Sherlock Holmes, and Mycroft Holmes. - Credit: Netflix

Along her journey into Victorian London, Enola crosses paths with runaway Lord Viscount Tewksbury, who intends to vote for a controversial Reform Bill in the House of Lords, the Representation of the People Act of 1884. As the story develops, unknown at the time, Enola saving the Lord’s life will prove paramount to the passing of the Reform Bill, being the deciding vote, and ultimately changing the course of history.

Although the story of Enola Holmes is fictional, the Representation of the People Act of 1884 was, in fact, a real event that set the groundwork for women’s rights to vote.

Enola Holmes includes a bit of everything: mystery, action, romance, history, and activism. It makes for a great family movie with a nice ending that the entire family will enjoy. Millie Bobby Brown is brilliant from start to finish, her cheekiness and youthful enthusiasm throughout makes this movie all the more enjoyable to watch. With this incredible display of talent, it’s clear Millie Bobby Brown is becoming a young heroine to inspire the next generation. 

As the movie progresses, it becomes more and more apparent that “Enola Holmes” isn’t just about a young woman finding herself in the world, but it’s about family, equality, and changing a world that doesn’t want to change.

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Joshua Robb

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Joshua Robb is the Company Director and a contributing author of Visually Reviewed. With a passion for innovating and pivoting technology, Joshua Robb has amassed a wide and in-depth knowledge of technology, with an ever-growing interest and passion for journalism, fashion and music.