“Now where to begin…”
Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown is taking a quick sojourn from Hawkins, Indiana to 1884 England, where she’ll star as the titular young sleuth in Enola Holmes, a film adapted from a series of books by Nancy Springer. Enola, the headstrong younger sister of Sherlock (Henry Cavill) and Mycroft (Sam Claflin), lands the biggest case of her life when her mother (Helena Bonham Carter) suddenly disappears on Enola’s 16th birthday. When her brothers arrive to both serve as her guardians and find their missing mother, Enola naturally rejects their sexist mandates of lady-like propriety and sets off to find her mom herself.
The trailer, which seems to vibe on the same frequency as other ostensibly modernized period jaunts like Hulu’s The Great and Apple’s Dickinson, arrives during the streamer’s legal battle with the estate of original Sherlock Holmes creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Per The Verge, the estate claims that the film lifts from the 10 Sherlock stories that are actually protected by copyright (much of Doyle’s work is considered public domain, which leaves them up for further interpretations and iterations). The lawsuit accuses Springer, her publisher Penguin Random House, Netflix, and the film’s production company of inflicting financial damage.
But it doesn’t look like the lawsuit is preventing Brown’s Enola from venturing into the world and sparring with Chewing Gum’s Susan Wokoma, so check out the trailer below. The game will officially be afoot when Enola Holmes begins streaming September 23.