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another movie where i liked henry cavill
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Before you start reading:
this is a review of Enola Holmes (2020) directed by Harry Bradbee and it contains spoilers.
Read my review on Letterboxd if you don’t want to be spoiled.
the good: overall fun and engaging, nuanced acting despite the risk of cartoonish performance, a good management of trope-inversion up to a point, Feel-Good messages about feminism, the future and hope.
The Bad: a slow beginning, Spelling Out Absolutely Everything, and eyeroll-worthy vibes of performative wokeness™
Yes, I watched this movie because Henry Cavill is in it and I’m still riding the Witcher high. I have no qualms admitting that. I also like Millie Bobby Brown quite a lot — people tell me she’s overrated, but I enjoyed her acting in Stranger Things — and the premise looked fun (I am not familiar with the books though) so I watched it.
I was looking for something undemanding to wind down after a heavy day — and Enola delivered. She managed to engage my brain for a couple hours and it made me itch for more, which is always a good thing, so that's a win in my book.
I started writing this entry back in September, but then things happened, and I couldn't be arsed to re-watch the movie in the meanwhile, so there might be inaccuracies. Have mercy on my scatterbrained soul.
So, the premise is very simple: what if Sherlock Holmes had a sister, raised to be smart and observant and strong, meant to carve her own future and her own path, like her brothers got to do? But her mother mysteriously disappears on the day of her 16th birthday, leaving her a lot of money and a few clues and to escape her brothers' stifling care — well, Mycroft's; she seems to be longing for a connection with Sherlock, whom she's indeed very similar to.
While she's looking for her mother, she meets a useless boy, who turns out to be very important for the overarching subplot about the happenings in the World: he's a young Marquess meant to vote for a Reform that will bring Change to the English society -- therefore people want him dead. So Enola -- who doesn't find him interesting or anything, baka -- decides to help him.
The exposition is delivered mainly through a gimmick -- Enola herself looks and speaks at the camera like she’s on the Office. It was a little annoying at first, but as the movie went on I got used to it and I started finding it funny, especially when it’s used as a way to express the unreliability of her narration -- for example when she’s lying to herself about her feeling for her stupidly pretty and useless Marquess.
After a brief snag in her plan, that is Lestrade acting like the cop he is and snitching on her so that Mycroft can catch her and shove her in Petunia McGonagall’s Finishing School for Young Ladies (I’m kidding but seriously -- watching Fiona Shawn dressed like that is a trip and a half, if you grew up watching Harry Potter.), where she spends a very unhappy time until Sherlock comes to cheer her up and the Marquess busts her out, she manages to catch the culprit: the first success in a long career as a female detective in London, direct competitor to her own brother, ha.
WHERE I OVERTHINK ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ABOUT AN INDULGENT FANTASY AND RUIN EVERYONE'S DAY
Ultimately, the point of this movie is to show that women can be powerful despite living in a society that doesn’t value them and that actively acts to deprive them of any significant role that isn’t being a wife and a good mother -- a society that is destined to change soon, anyway.
The thematic thread is actually well interwoven in the whole plot: not only we find it in the premise, where Eudoria raises Enola so that she’s not just another Victorian lady who thinks about marrying and having babies, but we also find it in other two more subplots, that are further related to each other.
First of all, the mysterious feminist revolution plot that involves Eudoria and Edith and a bunch of other women. Narratively, it’s a decoy: we’re meant to care about it because it’s our only lead to find Enola’s mother at first -- but then the storyline ends up following Enola’s step in her search of the Missing Marquise, when her priorities change.
While Enola is doing her investigating all over London, the vote for all men plot is quietly unraveling in the background, mostly unnoticed, until it’s revealed to be the motive behind the attempted murder of the Marquess. We’re never told exactly what the vote is for, but Google tells me that it’s probably the Representation of the People Act of 1884, which in a nutshell was about extending the suffrage to men who previously didn’t have the privilege.
EYE-ROLLING EXPLAINED IN FIVE POINTS OR LESS
(one) Starting with the petty things -- I won’t rant about the fucking corset thing and how tired it is to use the corset as symbol of being trapped in an uncomfortable social reality, because Bernadette Banner did it for me twenty times over on her Youtube channel, but ugh. I don’t care that Enola herself reconsiders its usefulness on a couple of occasions, because the words “oh well it’s not so uncomfortable after all” are never pronounced, so it’s pointless.
(two) Enola calls her Marquess “useless” almost as an affectionate pet name, so she’s excused from this -- but in general I won’t ever stop finding annoying the constant refrain of “useless boys/useless men”. I dislike the fact that when we’re talking about strong women there’s always a chapter about putting men down. The whole point of feminism is to give equality to every gender identity: it relies on empathy. Internalizing this sort of thing is incredibly toxic.
(three) Implying that, by saving the Marquess, Enola made it possible for the first step towards the vote for women to be taken is a wonderful tongue-in-cheek point and I found it delightful; but it completely ruins the efforts of Eudoria and Edith. Why the hell do we have badass women involved in a revolution if the revolution itself is happening entirely offscreen and ultimately is explicitly condemned as less effective than political reform?
(four) The exchange between Sherlock and Edith, where she threatens him with a teapot was really nice to watch. She threw some uncomfortable and scary truths right in Sherlock’s face, calling him out on his privilege: for all his brilliance, he’ll never get her struggle. He finds politics boring because things as they are don’t impact on his freedom in any way; he’s everything she isn’t -- rich, white and a man. It felt great and powerful and marvellous hearing it spelled it out like that, even if a bit on the nose.
But then I read a tweet by @ztsamudzi:
Is it just me or does anyone else feel like scenes like this — with punchy lines delivered by black/non-white people — in otherwise extremely white movies feels a bit...indulgent?
I'm obviously not equipped to talk about this specific issue (European, white person here) but in general it sounds about right. I generally try to keep from looking at other people’s opinion about the movie, so that it doesn’t influence my own while I’m still drafting my reviews, but I’ve seen folk mention the concept of formulaic expression of radical politics in fiction stories and between the “Revolution bad” thing and the “black woman shutting up white man” thing… if the shoe fits wear it.
(There’s also a weird conversation between Enola and Grandma Marchioness, where the old woman mentions that landowners protect land as it is, implying that stopping progress helps with preserving nature… and it’s a very nice scene but I found it a little odd in context.)
I'm definitely reading too much into the whole thing -- it's a lighthearted movie about a spunky detective girl, not some deeply researched social commentary docu-drama -- but if anything, it feels like a lack of commitment on the authors' part.
Okay I’m going to stop and try to sound smart and thoughtful and go back to our regularly scheduled squeeing, because that’s where the fun is at.
THE MARQUESS IN DISTRESS
Y’all. The Marquess is the perfect balance between stupid twink and intriguing love interest, and I absolutely adore what they did with him. I have no idea if he’s this awesome in the book (I sure hope so) but it doesn’t matter: Louis Partridge as Lord Tweksbury is perfect for the role.
For one thing, he's pretty. Not handsome: pretty. When we meet him, he's fully dressed as his Young Lord self: precious fabrics, long hair, so charming he comes across as a total airhead, he gets himself in a damsel-in-distress situation in five minutes flat. He appears naive and sheltered and absolutely unable to think on his feet.
Enola saves him with her long-suffering attitude, because she’s a hero and she’s got a good heart, and then the Marquess hints at being less of an idiot than he looks and Enola -- God help her -- is intrigued. Then she’s worried, because she does not believe him to be able to fend for himself against the people who want him dead.
Their couple trope is definitely the sunshine one with the grumpy one and it’s absolutely adorable. There’s something really endearing about Enola and her running commentary about him being foolish and unnecessary and useless. You can really tell that she’s trying to talk herself out of caring for him, but she’s not quite successful and she’s super offended by it.
The two of them have a good chemistry and they bond over shared life experiences: they’re not understood by their own families and they both feel abandoned and unwanted. They both learned all they know from one of their parents, whose loss is acutely felt. They’re both trying to carve a path for themselves, because the future is their own.
She eventually capitulates and admits to having feelings when everything seems lost -- and it works well, it’s a cliché for a reason -- and the final wrap where they say goodbye at the gate is very sweet. Enola is still very much herself, she didn’t turn into a Lady for the Marquess' sake -- her loose hair and uncorseted bodice plays a big contrast against the Marquess’ mother’s careful hairdo and dress. -- and she’s still rude and aloof and doesn’t give a fuck about etiquette; but she’s still a sixteen years old girl with feelings, and her moment of overwhelmed vulnerability when the Marquess kisses her hand is as intense as any Victorian romance’s.
INSUFFERABLE PRIVILEGED KIDS GROWING UP
Before I start gushing over Cavill's Sherlock, I wanted to talk about the siblings more in general, about their relationship with each other and about their role in the world they live in.
Mycroft is immediately presented as the Bad Cop. He’s appalled at Enola’s upbringing and at the state of the house and he’s extremely offended that he completely played into his mother’s hands. As soon as Enola falls under his responsibility, he wants what he thinks it’s the best for her, as society dictates: to be a Proper Lady, ready to become a faithful wife and a capable mother. He gets on well enough with Sherlock, but he has little patience for his methods. As the governess mentioned, he never was as quick as Sherlock, Enola and their mother are; it’s strongly implied that, even if he eventually found his own path, he could never afford to ignore the social norms, because he wasn’t brilliant enough to rise over them. The same narrative is continued by the Headmistress, when she tells Enola that her mother only cared about herself. It gives us a surprisingly nuanced picture of the female condition at the time: for many women, being a Perfect Lady was the ticket to safety and success. Of course here is a matter of whether they chose it or not -- but Enola being raised as she was is an exception, not the norm; being forced back into the norm immediately strains her relationship with her older brother. He’s clearly worried for her and also extremely miffed at Sherlock’s sudden interest in his charge.
Sherlock is an intelligent, skilled, busy man and Enola absolutely adores him, even if they haven’t seen each other in basically forever. In comparison, we know shit about Mycroft, because Enola doesn’t give a crap about him; but she feels a connection with Sherlock, so she’s obsessed with him and his career. She wants to grow up to be him; she collects newspaper clippings about his successes, she makes a point of remembering things about him. She’s meant to be him -- implicitly suggested by her stealing the clothes he grew up in.
On his part, Sherlock remembers her fondly from when they were children and he’s pleasantly surprised that she grew up to be such a brilliant mind -- which sounds rude and sexist but bear with me: historically, Sherlock as a character is an asshole: he doesn’t like women very much, he finds friendship distracting and he’s very impatient with intelligences he deems inferior to his. Emotions are a weakness and unnecessary, which he also remarks to Enola. We don’t see it explicitly in Cavill’s interpretation, but there’s a sort of inexplicableness to his interest in his sister, like he’s not sure himself why he cares so much. He was tasked by Mycroft to find their mother, but he gets distracted by his sister’s shenanigans; as the story progresses, we see him recognize her brilliance, event after event. When he goes to visit her at the Finishing School, he calls her a detective and acknowledges her as a peer, putting himself in the role of mentorship that he never cared about taking before. He’s delighted when he finds out from Lestrade that she solved the case before he did, when the shock wears off. Unfortunately, he completely fails to understand what Enola wants from him -- warmth, a familial bond and an intimate connection -- and dubs her a worthy opponent, instead.
So Enola is left to her own devices: Mycroft doesn’t want her as a protégé anymore, Sherlock doesn’t understand what it means to have a family, and her mother is on the run. She’s not alone, as she likes to say, but she’s meant to figure out her own life by herself.
IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
This thing is already long enough without me commenting on Henry Cavill’s looks and performance, but the whole reason I wrote it was to gush about him so -- I’ll just say that I really prefer him with longer and curly hair. He’s a very entertaining actor and, while he didn’t feel like Sherlock Holmes, I definitely enjoyed watching the whole array of micro-expressions he used.
I would be lying if I weren’t thinking about pairing him up with a young Watson played by Joey Batey -- because apparently my whole brain works around the Witcher’s cast -- but also lmao, Lestrade? Both Lestrade trying to win a “I know Sherlock better than you” contest against Enola, Sherlock walking in Scotland Yard like he owned the place and Lestrade ribbing at him about his sister’s victory over him were incredibly funny.
Considering that the whole reason I watched this movie was Henry Cavill -- who had a lot more screentime than I thought, so that was good -- I enjoyed this movie more than I imagined I would. I honestly expected it to be a lot more pretentious, but even with the Woke™ moments it never feels forced or gratuitous, unless you’re keeping an eye out for it.
As indulgent as it is, I’m glad that there’s still space for hopeful movies. Given the times we’re living in, I think we’re all in need of some light-hearted fun.