Millie Bobby Brown is well known for her amazing capacity of performing dramatic roles especially at such a young age, like she did incredibly well in the four seasons of “Stranger Things”. Despite that, the actress positively surprised the public in the first Netflix “Enola Holmes” movie, in 2020, when she showed that she could definitely play a relaxed and funny part.
As the positive feedbacks from the first movie were beyond the expected, and the legion of Brown‘s fans just continued to rise after the movie was released, it was kind of logical that a continuation would be an immediate success. With “Enola Holmes 2”, Millie Bobby Brown gained the public once again with all her charisma and talent, and with that included in the plot the film became much more interesting to watch.
The case
The movie starts with Enola opening her own office after solving her first case as an investigator. The beginning shows that Enola puts in a lot of effort to start her career but is always underestimated for being a girl and due to her age, she always feels like she is in her brother’s (Sherlock Holmes) shadow. When Enola is about to give up on her dream and close the office, a little girl comes to her asking for help to find her big sister, named Sarah Chapman. From that moment, the plot starts and the investigation begins.
The case was about the disappearance of a girl who worked in a phosphor factory. The missing was completely ignored by the government and the police, that’s why Enola felt the need to help, besides being anxious for a new case, of course. From that moment, the film’s narrative continues with a lot of intensity (what could possibly be considered a trademark of the movie), with Enola escaping from her enemies and getting in trouble in order to find Sarah and solve the case.
As the case gets deeper, the protagonist finds out that the girl’s disappearance is actually way more serious than what she expected, and has actually something to do with a mystery that her brother, Sherlock Holmes, is trying to solve, involving fraudulent transactions, persecutions and murders. Therefore, brother and sister work closely to put together the last pieces of the puzzle and solve the problem for the rest of the movie.
The idea behind the scenes (spoiler alert!)
The case is based on a true story that happened in England, in 1888. The “Matchgirls Strike” was an industrial action by girls, teenagers, and women who were subjected to bad working conditions and were treated badly at a match factory. In the movie, Sarah Chapman, the girl who Enola is trying to find and an employee of the place, is actually not missing, but trying to expose all the evidences that she found to prove the horrible work conditions of the factory and the poisonous element in the matches that was killing the girls. The real Sarah Chapman was 19 years old when she led the movement, in which about 1400 women marched out of the factory.
Bringing this historical moment to the movie made it more clear to understand what the directors were really trying to say with both films of the sequence. In the first movie, the feminine protagonism is clear in the plot, but with “Enola Holmes 2”, the intention of bringing feminism questions to the movie, going against all the sexism presented in that era that remains nowadays, is much more shown. The point of view of building a character with such a strong opinion, confident of herself, and that faces all the socially constructed ideals is amazing, that’s why it is so important to choose an actor that can truly identify with and represent those questions. What Millie Bobby Brown is capable of doing being Enola puts in perspective all gender issues, really showing that there is nothing women are incapable of doing.
Millie Bobby Brown nails once again!
Ranging from action scenes, romance and mystery, the plot of “Enola Holmes 2” is well balanced and written, and, just as important, well performed by Millie Bobby Brown, who shines once again as Enola, owning the role that was given.
All international critics compliment the actress for her part as Enola Homes. “Millie Bobby Brown is all girl-power pluck as the teenage Enola, as smart if not smarter than any man in the room and always eager to tell us so”, said Bob Strauss in his review for Datebook.
Even though there are some critics about how the film was developed or about the screenplay of the movie, it’s unanimous the perspective of Millie’s amazing performance. Most of the critics believe that her performance in “Enola Holmes 2” was better than in the first movie and that was one of the reasons that most people enjoyed much more the sequence.
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The article above was edited by Ana Beatriz Aith.
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