Sherlock Holmes’ Younger Sister

By ROB PATTERSON

I may not be a card-carrying Baker Street Irregular, but as an avid mystery buff, I’ve done my time on many cases with Sherlock Holmes in print and film and on TV. Interestingly, on a trip to England I stayed in a flat the next street over from 221B Baker, same block (my friend I stayed with was rooming with the future Lord Balfour).

The rear of the building where Holmes lived was just a few houses down from the back of where I was. I even took the long way after picking up a takeout curry just so I could pass by the front door of where the world’s most famous detective was said to live. Sherlock has been so ingrained in my literary pantheon that being that close gave me not just a smile but a delightful frisson, like the game of detecting was afoot!

Even the most enduring entertainment franchises can be well served by a smart recast, renewal or update over the years. The James Bond film series got it with Daniel Craig. (I wonder how many others noticed that in “Casino Royale,” Craig’s debut, the only gadget – all but essential to previous Bond films – was a GPS; how’s that for a reset?)

I’ve quite enjoyed such recent trips back to Baker Street as the gifted Benedict Cumberbatch playing Holmes and equally-adroit Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson in the delightful if sadly short-lived BBC TV series “Sherlock,” which updated the pair to latter day but also returned the detecting duo to their original Victorian era in two-hour special. And also the masterly Robert Downey Jr. (Holmes) and Jude Law (Watson) in a series of engaging and fun movies.

Yet none of them, talented as the actors and filmmakers may be, hold a candle to “Enola Holmes” – Sherlock’s kid sister. Who just returned with her second movie on Netflix.

The Enola character was created by author Nancy Springer. She’s the teenaged sister of Sherlock, 20 years younger.

And she is played with a sprightly wittiness and charming elan by Millie Bobbie Brown, best known for her role in the popular Netflix sci-fi series “Stranger Things,” which has yet to entice me to watch it. No matter. “Enola Holmes” tells me all I need to know about this prodigiously talented soon-to-be 19-year-old British actress (read: luminously bright future).

Brown invests Enola with brimming girl power and smarts that make her a formidable presence as a private detective breaking into the game in Victorian London. The films quite cannily have her break the fourth wall during key points in the action and story, further charming and bonding with the viewer.

The visually pungent features canter along at a beckoning pace, drawing from the the Holmes oeuvre and enhancing it, not just with Enola, but also the wonderful Helena Bonham Carter as the elusive Eudoria Holmes, mother of Sherlock, Enola and Mycroft.

Of course Sherlock’s bete noire Moriarty enters the mysteries. The two Enola movies are a delight for Holmes buffs. But viewers don’t have to be that, and one hopes the films draw more readers to the Sherlock books and their many offshoots.

If I were the father of a teenaged daughter, I’d be urging her to watch the movies, which are ultimately jolly good fun. Young women shouldn’t just find Enola an inspiring role model exemplifying all they can achieve, as in taking up her older brother’s pursuit, she proves that women can excel in any quarter and even give a master a run for his money if not better him. Brown, who produced the films, is also and exemplar of teenaged girl achievements.

I’m hoping “Enola Holmes” becomes a series that Brown returns to throughout her career. Not wanting the story to end is about the best tout one can give it.

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Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email robpatterson054@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, January 1-15, 2023

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