Enola Holmes 2: A Striking Success

Enola Holmes 2 just hit Netflix and immediately made it to the top ten movies list. Does it live up to the expectations we had for it?

By: Ananya Chittibabu and Mallika Saoji

Netflix

The second Enola Holmes movie came out on November 4th 2022, two years after the first one, which was met with instant success. We were scared to watch the second movie, having loved the first one, but afraid that the sequel would fall victim to the second movie curse and not live up to the first one. However, it delivered everything that we wanted and more. Starting with a quick summary, the movie focused on Enola’s second case, trying to find a young girl’s missing sister, named Sarah Chapman. The girls work at a match factory in Victorian London, having to brave terrible conditions and grueling labor, and Enola dives in the world, uncovering the mystery of Sarah Chapman and the workers’ rights revolution she is involved in.

We were pleasantly surprised by the plot and how hooked we were on the mystery. It was especially interesting how they incorporated something that happened in real life, and made it much more captivating. The plot of the mystery was based on the real events of the Matchgirls’ strike that happened in London in 1888, where women walked out of a match factory after enduring dangerous health and safety violations and not receiving proper pay. As the movie described, many of the women were dying from what they thought was typhus but was actually dangerous phosphorus in the matches, used for its cheap prices. While not completely historically accurate, the movie took us through the intricacies of London society, from the working class factory women to the high class socialites and their extravagant lifestyles, seen through a ball that Enola attends.

Netflix

The captivating plot was brought to life by the great actors, who were the draw of the movie for us. Millie Bobby Brown and Louis Partridge had amazing chemistry and the on screen romance between the two was very well done. We liked how it wasn’t the main plot of the movie, they heavily focused on the story of Sarah Chapman and the “typhus” outbreak. And having a relationship between the two be forefront of the movie would have been disappointing. The way that they balanced the two was quite nice and they did it in a way that fit Enola’s character. They didn’t make her weaker or too dependent on Tewksbury, they made her an independent woman who happens to be romantically involved with another person.  

There were also quite a few action scenes that kept the plot from getting bogged down with the more heavy or confusing elements of the mystery story, and there was a Sherlock Holmes debut, played by Henry Cavill. The tone was kept light, with a lot of humor and the sets and costuming were perfect and really brought us further into the world, though we’re not sure how historically accurate they were. 

The movie was appealing not just to people our age but people older than us. One of our uncle’s was so invested in the movie from start to finish because of how interesting the plot was, and he didn’t know anything about the actors like we did. He watched the movie purely because he thought the movie was interesting, which is quite rare among older folks who tend to watch these movies because of their kids. It’s a movie that was obviously made for children or older teenagers but because of how well written it is and the interesting story they decided to pick, it made it appealing to a lot of people. 

Overall the film was very well done and exceeded many of our expectations. Like many people we started watching for the actors and stayed for the plot. It wasn’t too childish and they did a good job balancing the violence, story, and the romance and that’s what made it appealing to  many people in different age groups.