Enola Holmes Review — Does Enola Holmes Has Successfully Present Feminist Characters in Victorian Era?

Ovioctavia
3 min readFeb 20, 2021

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Numbers of audience have shared their opinions about Enola Holmes and majority of them said that this is an extraordinary feminist movie. However, this notion is still debateable among the Holmes’ movie addict. Does Harry Bradbeer really focused on the feminism? If yes, what kind of feminism is reflected in the movie?

image source : vulture.com

Enola Holmes is an intellegent, independent, and strong little sister of the famous Holmes brothers. The names of her brothers are Mycroft and Sherlock. Enola raised by her mother, Eudoria Holmes and never met her older brothers after the Dad passed away. Then, someday in the morning Enola’s mother has gone misteriously, she tried to find her mother and head to London, then the journey begin.

It is known that Eudoria has raised Enola to be an intellegent woman. The movie has shows that, since Enola was a child her mother has given certain schedules for studying history, literature, science, jiu jitsu, and many more. Eudoria seemed to preepare her daughter to become a brave young woman and used to be trained to solve the problems logically. Regardless of the fact that they are women in Victorian era which the society was patriarchy.

Eudoria herself, also has a strong feminist character. It can be seen through her critical thinking about the world at that time. She eagers to challenge the pathriartical system within society, which at that time such notion was rarely own by other women. She also willing to sacrifice herself, live endanger and leave Enola alone, for the sake of women’s future.

Bradbeer describing Eudoria as a woman who has a big vision about future. She can see there is possibility that women and men can be treated equally. However, in order to accomplish the mission, revolution and rebellion is needed to be done. Thus, she was doing a women suffrage movement. These ideas and actions have shown the seriousness of the director in delivering feminism issue in the movie.

Another key point which shows the powerful feminist characteristic is that, Eudoria taught Enola about the women’s principles through Virginia Woolf’s book like, A Room of One’s Own. Eudoria also emphasized to her daughter that she has to be an independent, strong, quick witted, and have the ability to solve the rubric of mystery. Knowing that outside world is a dangerous place, these skills is urged to be mastered.

The sudden missing of Enola’s mother is the biggest question in the story. This tragedy is known by the audience as a chance to test the skills and knowledge given by Eudoria to Enola. Does Enola able to survive in the outside world by her own? Is she going to find her mother?

Nonetheless, in the beginning of Enola’s journey to find her mother suddenly Enola met a young boy named Tewksburry. From the moment Enola met this troubled boy, I think the story is a little bit screwed up. This event interrupt the main mystery of the movie which is finding Enola’s lost mother.

I guess this event was created since the director wants to emphasize the feminist’s soul within Enola. In other words, the relationship between Enola and Tewksburry implies that women too, can also protecting men.

In the end of the movie, Tewksburry asked Enola to stay with him but she refused to. Enola prefer to live by her own and find her true purpose of life independently.

For some audiences, becoming a feminist does not mean that you have to be single and live by your own. Whether you admit it or not, everyone has a desire and attached to other people. At least, a woman or man also need a partner in order to help each other in this life. We as human are technically will not be survived if living as an individualist.

Moreover, having a partner is extremely crucial in order to maintain the amount of population in this world. Imagine, if everyone is decided to live their own life and don’t marry each other, human’s population will be extinct very soon.

Becoming a feminist is a very good decision for the sake of world’s equality and justice. However there are some limits that we as human can’t resist.

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Ovioctavia
Ovioctavia

Written by Ovioctavia

A lifelong learner. I enjoy sharing my thoughts about books, movies, social and cultural issues. Sometimes, I also write poems!

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