Made Enola Holmes for little Fleabags: Bradbeer on giving Sherlock story feminist spin

British filmmaker Harry Bradbeer says his film Enola Holmes, about the free-spirited teenage sister of Sherlock Holmes, will resonate with young girls and is firmly rooted in the feminist world that he had created in the dark comedy “Fleabag” and spy thriller “Killing Eve”.
The story of Sherlock, created by Arthur Connan Doyle, has seen multiple iterations in books, cinema and on television, but it is for the first time that instead of the fictional iconic detective, his 16-year-old sister is at the centre of the mystery.
Bradbeer told PTI that the background of the early 19th century when the women’s movement was in its nascent stage in the UK made the setting and the story perfect for “a feminist take”.
“About halfway through the making of ‘Enola Holmes’, I thought, ‘I’m making this film for little Fleabags’. Many women that came to me after watching ‘Fleabag’, said, ‘I feel acknowledged, I feel confirmed in who I am’. It brings tears to my eyes,” he told PTI in a Zoom interview ahead of the film’s release on Netflix.
Bradbeer said the film, led by “Stranger Things” star Millie Bobby Brown, is very much a part of the feminist universe of his past stories.
“There are girls out there who are going to feel self accepting through this film because she’s someone who just wants to live her own life. She’s not a particularly selfish person, or reckless, but well thought.” (PTI)