Millie Bobby Brown plays a lesser known member of the Holmes family in Enola Holmes 2, featuring new and returning characters.
Directed by Harry Bradbeer (Fleabag, Killing Eve), Enola Holmes is based on the first book of the series, titled The Case of the Missing Marquess, and follows Enola on a quest to find her missing mother. Along the way, Enola comes across other threats that require her to explore her own investigative and deduction skills. The second Millie Bobby Brown Netflix movie isn't based on one of Springer's novels. Rather, it finds its inspiration from the real-life matchgirls' strike of 1888. It’s well known that Sherlock and Mycroft are both exceptionally intelligent men, but how does Enola compare to her siblings, and what are the origins of this peculiar character?
Enola Holmes Isn’t From Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes Stories
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t explore Sherlock Holmes’ family background in any of his stories, but he did introduce his brother, Mycroft (who isn't in Enola Holmes 2), who’s seven years older than the detective. Mycroft is a government official and a founding member of the Diogenes Club, a gentleman’s club which according to Sherlock’s description (found in “The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter”), “contains the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town”.
Although Springer took characters from Doyle’s stories to build her own, Enola Holmes is an original character created specifically for this book series. Through her (and their mother), Springer has also given Sherlock and Mycroft a family backstory, but ultimately, the star of the books is Enola, and her brothers are there as ing characters. Of course, all this means that Enola isn’t part of the canon of Sherlock Holmes, instead being a character whose stories are completely separate from the books written by Conan Doyle.
Enola Holmes’ Origins Explained
As mentioned above, Enola is the youngest Holmes sibling in the Millie Bobby Brown Netflix movie, 20 years younger than Sherlock. She grew up with her mother Eudoria in the family estate, and she stopped seeing her brothers when she was around four years old, as they grew apart after various disagreements with their mother. Enola, like her mother, doesn’t follow society’s rules on what women should wear, be, and act like, which has been controversial among their community. In addition to that, Eudoria isn’t people’s favorite simply because she had Enola 20 years after Sherlock’s (played by Henry Cavill) birth, which was quite scandalous in the 18th century.
Springer is not the only author who has borrowed Conan Doyle’s characters to make her own stories, and as a result, she isn’t the only one who has heard from the Conan Doyle estate. Surprisingly, they were suing the Enola Holmes movie over the character itself and her relationship to the Holmes brothers, but for depicting Sherlock Holmes as having emotions. Given that they still own Conan Doyle’s final 10 stories, in which Sherlock is a bit more open with his emotions, they are accusing the movies and Springer of copyright infringement. Thankfully though the Conan Doyle estate decided to dismiss the lawsuit in the end.
How Enola Holmes Is A Different Detective To Sherlock
Enola, just like her famous brother, is also a detective, but she’s very different from Sherlock. Enola doesn’t have the experience nor education Sherlock had (it’s important to that Sherlock Holmes was very skilled in different things, such as boxing, chemistry, and more). In the first book, Enola points out these differences, explaining that her abilities are limited to writing, reading, fishing, finding bird’s nests, and digging up worms. While she’s very intelligent, she lacks the deductive skills of her brothers, but that doesn’t mean she can’t work on that – she only needs practice.
Enola’s biggest obstacle is the simple fact that she’s a girl, and so she’s expected to have certain education and dedicate her life to specific tasks, something she’s not willing to accept (in big part thanks to her upbringing). Sherlock didn’t have to fight his way through the world to become a detective, whereas the young Enola did. Another big difference is that Enola is much more connected to her emotions than Sherlock, even if this version of the Great Detective is a bit more open and warm than the canon one.
Millie Bobby Brown Plays Enola Holmes In The Netflix Franchise
Enola Holmes is still a fairly new character, whose first book was published in 2006. During all this time, Enola has only lived in book pages, and her only adaptation has been into graphic novels. Now that she’s making the jump to film, she’s being played by Millie Bobby Brown, who also served as producer. Brown is mostly known for playing Eleven in Stranger Things as well as Madison Russell in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Brown is close to her character’s age – Enola is 14, while Brown is 16 in the first movie –, so if another Enola Holmes sequel happens, she could definitely reprise her role.
The stories of Enola Holmes, as well as her development from Sherlock and Mycroft’s youngest sister who was pretty much left behind along with her mother, to a detective skilled enough to work alongside her famous brother, has been successful with readers, as well as on the screen. What’s true is that Enola is a different type of hero: one that defies gender stereotypes while also bringing interesting cases that are at the level of those of the Great Detective.
Millie Bobby Brown Has Ideas For Enola Holmes 3
The Stranger Things actress has found success in her Enola Holmes character, and the Millie Bobby Brown Brown hopes that the character of Enola Holmes will be challenged in a more personal way going forward, and is more than happy to return to the screen as Enola Holmes. Since there's no news yet about a third installment, Netflix watchers can enjoy the first two Enola Holmes movies in the meantime.
