Discovering Through Enola Holmes

Discovering through Enola Holmes

Movie Review for the weekend

Snapshot:  A sweet sixteen birthday surprise, more like a solve-the-mystery party.

Best line: Oh, you’ve time enough for the world. Let it do its damage later. 

Being a woman has always been hard, and there have always been women who just refused to be oppressed. Enola Holmes is one of them. The movie introduces a female version of Sherlock Holmes minus the arrogance that accompanies that name. She is kind, she fights for the vulnerable, and she does it her way. The name Enola spelled backward is ‘alone.’ What does your name mean when spelled backward?! Never mind.

The movie begins with Enola Holmes (the lead protagonist) poorly riding a bicycle and talking to you, yes, you – the viewer. Her mother has gone missing Ferndale Hall on her Sixteenth birthday, and she is on the way to meet her brothers (quite a bit older than her) – Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes from the railway station. Hoping that Sherlock would have all the answers, they come back home, only to realize that her brothers do not have her best interests at heart. So, she leaves home, just like her mother did. She searches for her mother, all the while figuring out what mettle she has.

Does a man decide what a woman should be? Does a man decide what makes a proper young woman or when a woman needs a husband!? In a world filled with men thinking they know it all, enters Enola Holmes. She knows not to embroider or string seashells, but she can fight with nothing but her fists. 

Caught between a mother who hopes to protect her daughter from the world while preparing her for the same and the brothers who abandoned her when she was a child, one of whom is embarrassed by her mere existence, Enola goes out into the world, trusting no one but her wits to sustain her.

The true hero is the Mother, whose words of wisdom Enola recalls throughout the movie. Although she heeds all her Mother’s instructions from – “Paint your own picture, Enola. Don’t be thrown off course by other people. Especially men!” to “Sometimes you have to let nature take its course.“, she becomes a woman when she makes her own decisions and sees it through. An out-of-the-box thinker, she surprises even the famous Sherlock Holmes with her skillset by solving the Marquees case before he does.

Enola leaves Ferndale Hall in search of her mother, who had suddenly abandoned her and ends up finding herself. She figures out who she really is and holds close her Mother’s wise words – There are two paths you can take, Enola. Yours or the path others choose for you. The Future is up to us.

The movie is a good reminder of how far women have come from being forced to wear corsets and hip enhancers (#ILoveMyPJs), with equal rights to vote and be educated. It makes me wonder if women are still oppressed?! What do you think?! Women are still paid less than men, expected to be a mother, a daughter-in-law, a wife, and an employee every 24 hrs while a man is excused for just being a man. Somehow, it’s taboo to talk about a women’s periods which equals pain that sends shocks like a heart attack in her uterus, while a man’s headache excuses him of any household chores. 

Will this ever change? The wise words of Enola’s mother ring true for me too. Not from her lips of course but from a different pair of lips “You are a Woman, Hephzibah, I have equipped you with everything you need, to be anything you want to be. The future is up to you.”  This assures me that in a male-dominated, patriarchal society like ours, there is still to hope in the reality of God’s created order- that man and women are created equal. Society can place their norms on us, but our identity comes from a Higher Power. 

In the past, several women have set out to change the world, and have spent their entire lives for the same. Centuries later, here we are in 2020 in a world that still needs changing.

So, I call on my sisters, to stand up for yourself, and if you have the strength, stand up for other women too. I call on you to teach your sons to be good men who treat women with respect and equality. And as you watch Enola Holmes, let’s attempt to make this world a better place. 

As they say in the movie Every vote counts.