While Disney’s princesses prop up the patriarchy, a new wave of heroines such as Enola are out to change the world
It is not often Sherlock Holmes gets a taste of his own analysis, but the film Enola Holmes dishes it to him. “You don’t know what it is to be without power,” a tea-room proprietor (and undercover feminist) tells the Victorian sleuth. “Politics doesn’t interest you because you have no interest in changing a world that suits you so well.” Touché. Enola Holmes is yet another revisionist spin on an over-filmed story, but unlike her elder brother, spunky young Enola (delightfully played by Millie Bobby Brown) has a vested interest in changing a world that doesn’t suit her at all.
It has become easy to label any story led by a female character as “empowering”, but Enola Holmes goes beyond mere lip service. Yes, she is an idealised, independent-minded heroine but Enola was trained to be so by her mother (Helena Bonham Carter), who turns out to be a militant suffragette activist. Like Mother, Enola doesn’t accept the gender role society has assigned her. And like Mother, she sets about changing things. The plot centres on Enola’s rescue of a foppish young lord whose life is in danger. She quite fancies him but, more importantly, his vote is key in passing the Reform Act in the House of Lords, which will pave the way for women’s suffrage.