Time to close out our look at Jack Thorne’s screenwriting work for 2020, and quite frankly, this really could go either way. It could be another serving of bland nothing that feels like a shadow of a much better story, or it could be a solid, if uneven, breath of fresh air within its own genre. At either rate, I’m fully expecting every other aspect of production to be overclocked to make up for the weakness within the script. Well, nothing of the sort shows up here. It seems I have left the best for last by sheer happenstance, as this is easily Thorne’s most fully-formed script of the year.
But before we jump the gun, let’s get into a few remarks about the casting, starting with Millie Bobby Brown as the titular Enola. While most audiences know her for Stranger Things, my impression of her is shaped largely by how she got into a shouting match with King freaking Ghidorah in Godzilla: King Of The Monsters. That level of brass cajones certainly fits with her portrayal of the lead here, with a sharp wit, positively sparkling personality, and more fourth-wall breaking than both Deadpool movies combined. And every one of them works, whether she’s directly addressing the audience about her thoughts, or just flashing a look of sheer exasperation at the people around her. She’s a Holmes alright.
Speaking of which, the casting for the rest of her family merits mention as well, as they are all remarkably good fits for the characters. Henry Cavill as the legendary Sherlock fills in his uber-inquisitive shoes with ease, while letting in just enough emotionality to nail his connection with Enola without completely betraying his character. Same goes for Sam Claflin as Mycroft, who is basically the contemporaneous patriarchy made singular flesh, with all the condescension and pretence that entails. Then there’s Helena Bonham Carter as their mother Eudoria, who certainly comes across as someone strong and weird enough to be a progenitor of such a strong and weird trio of minds.
It also helps that Enola’s part in the larger Holmes formula, on its own, shows why this story was worth telling. Sherlock is one of the most famous detectives in fiction, but he’s also just as well known for his coldness towards other people. He’s so calculating, you’re either a walking clue or a bothersome obstacle. Then there’s Mycroft, who might be even more brilliant than his little brother, only he’s not nearly as proactive in using his intellect and stays in his lethargic comfort zone. Next to these two, Enola’s warmth, care about the welfare of others, and forthrightness about her desires makes for some solid variety.
Where her place within that canon takes on something greater is how her feminism-on-blast fits in with the era of the rest of the story, with her want to be more than just an extension of a man mingling with the brewing suffragette movement to highlight a key point: The male Holmeses work with the society they exist in because they already benefit from it, whereas the females (both Enola and Eudoria) work around the society they exist in in an attempt to rebalance it with themselves in mind. Feminism 101, basically, but it works quite well within the main mystery framework of the story, and for how refreshingly dark some of the developments can get, it doesn’t feel like it’s treating the topic gingerly for the sake of its target audience.
That’s what I mean when I say this is Thorne’s most fully-realised script of 2020: All of these ideas manage to stick without a seeming great deal of effort, and because they emerge this fleshed-out, there’s no real feeling that this is the lesser form of something else like the rest of his adaptations. It’s a quite fun adventure, with Millie owning every single second she’s on-screen, and it’d make for a damn good double-feature with Mr. Holmes. With Mr. Holmes, you’d get the legacy of the character, what makes him so interesting, and a potential ultimate story for his timeline. With Enola Holmes, you get the restrictions of that same character, why it’d be interesting to look beyond them, and a potential door-opener for a whole new legacy.
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