The background plot hidden in the movie
Make no mistake this has nothing to do with being a detective movie.
It is a Disney kind of story, just the girl did not marry the prince, in this case a young Marquess, in the end, but it did hint the Marquess was kind of in love with her.
The story is kind of absurd to start with. The girl's mother basically trained the girl since childhood to be a detective or intelligence operative, taught her cipher, disguise and how to fight in form of Jujutsu in the woods, which is ridiculous in so many ways. First of all, not teaching Jujutsu in a padded room is very dangerous and there is no such room even in the house. Secondly, what motivates a mother to teach that to a daughter? For what purpose? I can hardly imagine a girl would willingly endure such training and spar with her own mother in the woods without protection and proper motivation, or even being told of the purpose of such training. Clearly the girl knew nothing about her mother's agenda.
Nothing feminine was taught to the girl, not even a bit. The only reason I can think of is to make the girl some sort of soldier. Nothing is allowed to soften her up.
The mother supposedly joined an all female militant group for at least 10 years, stealing money allocated by her son for her daughter's education to fund it and building bombs to fight I suppose patriarchy, so I think it is a kind of feminist terrorist group sort of thing because the few bombs built in the movie were clearly not for battle, more likely for assassination or terrorism.
I think it was implied they planned to use the explosives to assassinate people voting against the reform bill, that was why she was leaving right before it and had meetings about the war chest build up. But her daughter exposed the place where they hid the explosives. And that is why she showed up in the end after the vote because she has not yet committed the murders and no longer need to, at least not for a while.
The mother was never made to be a bad person, so I guess the hidden message here is that using explosives in the name of fighting patriarchy is OK?
Maybe she was planning to recruit her own daughter at some stage? That would explain what she taught the girl.
Those sinister implications were never clearly stated in the movie, being a semi Disney movie and all. Millie is indeed a suitable actress for the role, which is a tomboyish kind of girl, somewhat rude, self centered and demanding, in short, kind of a brat.
The boy in the movie however is more pretty, polite, feminine and docile, letting the girl making all the decisions, which seems to be a trend in progressive and feminist movies, even Disney princes are usually more manly. If Enola were a boy and her behavior towards the Tewkesbury (if he were a girl) would have been quite unacceptable.
I think the idea is that you have to make men look weak so women could look strong. But more often than not the females presented in these movies are somewhat more rude than strong.
The ending was quite unsatisfying, Sherlock Homes showed up at police station naming the criminal without giving any evidence, after the case is already concluded. That is why I am saying this is not a detective move. I have no problem Sherlock Homes did not solved the case in time and give the girl a chance to live through it, but showing up without any evidence at all is just not working for me on any level. His deduction was not conclusive at all, anyone in government or certain political factions could also have done it.
Another interesting thing in the end is that the girl announced her future is up to her. But it was not. Her mother made her, there are limited choices for her future due to the way she was raised. I guess you can brainwash a girl to think she has free will, just like this movie is trying on it's younger audience.
The movie should be all right for the typical Disney teenage girl audience, most of them would probably only remember few catchphrases and slogans, won't be able to see the sinister background plots hidden in the movie, which should be interesting enough for adults to endure it if we choose to ignore all the plot problems and underlying messages.