Mrs. Holmes: Not Winning Mother of the Year Anytime Soon by Kevin Letts

The second Enola Holmes movie has come out and it has been warmly received much like the first one. On Rotten Tomatoes, both movies have been rated “fresh” with ratings in the 90s percentile and I won’t be surprised if they make Enola Holmes 3.

The movie stars Millie Bobby Brown as Enola Holmes, the younger sister to Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. Sherlock Holmes is played by Henry Cavill and we also have Helena Bonham Carter playing Eudoria Holmes who is the mother of the Holmes siblings. All performances are fantastic and these are movies worth watching even if they deviate from the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle canon stories.

My focus is on Eudoria Holmes. She raises Enola by herself and teaches her many things from reading, mathematics, the sciences, and even archery. Eudoria is obviously a very intelligent woman and it rubs off on her daughter. Also, we see Mrs. Holmes not conforming to the norm that is common with Victorian women at the time. Being in the 21st century, we don’t see that as all that bad. Even though it was probably scandalous at the time. With that said, however, I don’t see Eudoria winning “Mother of the Year” any time soon. Why? First of all, as we see in the first movie, one morning Enola wakes up like any other day to find her mother not in the house. She wonders where she is and then realizes after a time, her mother has disappeared and is not coming back. Enola’s brothers, Sherlock and Mycroft do not really help matters much. 

After a short time in finishing school, which does not fit Enola’s independent personality, Enola escapes and goes to London to try to find her mother. During this time, we find the second reason I don’t see Eudoria as a good mother. During her search, Enola finds out her mother is a part of a more radical suffragette organization that owns a storeroom full of explosives and a map with political location marked. Not only does Eudoria abandon her daughter, but we also find she is, essentially, a terrorist. 

Before you scoff and think I am off my rocker, which some did when I first said this during a Parallel Case meeting, look at the definition and think about what a room full of explosives owned by a radical organization with a map of political location marked means. According to https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/terrorism, the FBI defines domestic terrorism as, “Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.” Think about this as well, let’s say you found a storeroom of explosives owned by an anti-abortion organization with various Planned Parenthood locations marked on a map in that storeroom. You would probably think terrorist, wouldn’t you? I know I would. Women's suffrage was a worthy cause, but resorting to terrorist acts is still terrorism.

At the end of the first movie, Eudoria visits Enola and reveals she is wanted by British law. She said she didn’t expect Enola to find her and left because she wanted to protect Enola and change the world. 

Now is it obvious Enola’s mother loves her? Of course. She wants to protect Enola. However, I believe Eudoria Holmes abandoning her daughter and being part of a group that was about to resort to terrorist tactics are some pretty bad choices as a mother and I would not see her as “Mother of the Year” any time soon.

With all this said, are these fun movies? Yes. I enjoyed them very much and I look forward to a third installment should one come out.