In The Country and Town November 2022

Millie Bobby Brown returns as the fierce and fiery Enola Holmes in ‘dream come true’ Netflix sequel

By Rachael Davis, PA Entertainment Features Writer

Follow in her brother Sherlock’s footsteps as one of London’s finest detectives. Of course, she doesn’t yet have the contact book and reputation of her older brother, and many won’t take her seriously thanks to her age and gender, but nonetheless we join Millie Bobby Brown’s Enola in Enola Holmes 2 as she receives her first case. Enola is approached by a young working class girl who has lost her sister, last seen at the match factory where she – and lots of other girls like her – worked. Soon enough, it becomes clear that the case bestowed on Enola is much bigger than one missing girl – it’s a tale set amidst the Match Girls’ Strike of 1888, one of the most significant events in the evolution of workers’ rights, and women’s empowerment. “The first film had been set around the Great Reform Act, the battle for the vote,” explains director Harry Bradbeer, “so we wanted to have another historical event that was relevant. “Having the first film being about the constitution, we wanted the next film to be about industry,and the struggle and the exploitation of working rights. “We knew that Enola was going to travel into London, that was where we left her, and that she was going to find a dirty and a more difficult world. And I love the idea of her interacting with girls of her own age, but from a completely different background.” Thus, the idea for setting the film around the Match Girls’ Strike was born, because the strike was “a story of sisterhood, and of bravery, and the need to collaborate”. “At the end of it,you have a strike which involved women gathering together and finding the courage to stand side by side, and risk their livelihoods for a better future,” says Bradbeer, who’s also known for his work on Killing Eve and Fleabag.

“That felt like a natural progression of the suffragette and emancipation story we told in the first.”

For star and producer Millie Bobby Brown, returning to the role

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