The notion of Sherlock Holmes having a sleuthing teenage sister is a worrisome one, promising just more throwaway tween adventure fodder. And when it opens with the titular character talking straight through the fourth wall, armed with the knowledge that Bradbeer also directed several episodes of the terminally annoying Fleabag, things really do not look good.
What follows is a quite a revelation. As she sets out to find her free-spirited missing mother, we get economically-crafted action scenes, a lovingly-constructed late/post-Victorian London like Dickens shot through a Lemony Snicket filter, and an actual adult context, as the subjugation of women and their struggle for universal suffrage always looms large in the background. It's witty, well-paced and bolstered by a great supporting cast, with Helena Bonham Carter as the radical mother, Henry Cavill as a diffident Sherlock and Fiona Shaw as the headmistress of a conservative finishing school for ladies, amongst others. Millie Bobby Brown as Enola, though, really stands out: she's passionate, inventive and determined, and her winking camera-mugging never proves tiresome, as you can well imagine it might have done with almost any other teen actress. An unexpected and very welcome pleasure.
7/10
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