The cameras flashed, the crowd cheered, and somewhere in Leicester Square, a man in a flat cap clutched a cardboard sign reading ‘Crew wages, not slave wages’. That was the scene last night as Millie Bobby Brown and Louis Partridge graced the red carpet for the Enola Holmes sequel, a film that represents both a triumph for the British film industry and a stark reminder of its precarity.
Let’s be clear: Brown is a phenomenon. At 19, she carries a franchise with the ease of a seasoned diplomat, her smile as calculated as her acting choices. Partridge, all cheekbones and youthful intensity, is the perfect foil. Together they embody a new kind of British star: globally bankable yet stubbornly homegrown. Their success should be a cause for national celebration.
But the air on that red carpet was thick with contradiction. For every fan waving an autograph book, there was a protester reminding us that the industry’s glittering surface hides a grinding reality. The ‘cultural shift’ we are witnessing is not just about diversity on screen. It is about the erosion of the middle class in film production. The runners, the lighting techs, the make-up artists. The people for whom a steady job on a British film used to mean a mortgage, a pension, hope.
I spoke to a woman named Sandra, 47, who had worked as a costume assistant on the first Enola Holmes film. ‘I couldn’t afford to come back,’ she said, adjusting her scarf against the cold. ‘The rates haven’t kept up with London rents. They want you for 14-hour days, six days a week, and you’re meant to be grateful.’ She pointed at the stars. ‘I like Millie, she’s lovely. But this isn’t her fault. It’s the system.’
That system is the same one that hailed the success of ‘The Crown’ and ‘Paddington’. It relies on a pool of freelancers who are increasingly priced out of the city they produce culture for. The triumph of British cinema is built on the backs of people who cannot afford to live in Britain’s cultural capital.
And what of the stars themselves? Brown, ever the professional, gave the requisite soundbites about female empowerment and Victorian feminism. But look closer. At her age, she has already been in the public eye for nearly a decade. She represents a restless generation for whom the traditional path of stage school and regional theatre is obsolete. She is a product of streaming, of global marketing, of a world where a child from Bournemouth can become a megastar without ever treading the boards of the West End.
Louis Partridge, meanwhile, offers a different narrative. Born in London, educated in small productions, he is perhaps the last of a dying breed: the actor who rises through grassroots British film. In his eyes, during the brief interview I caught, there was a flicker of something that seemed like gratitude. Or was it fear? The fear of being the last.
The Enola Holmes sequel is good. It is charming, smart, and showcases the best of British storytelling. But as the searchlights swept across the faces of the crowd, I could not shake the feeling that we were celebrating a phantom limb. The industry shouts about its successes, but the body it belongs to is weakening.
We are at a crossroads. Do we continue to lionise the individuals while ignoring the scaffolding that supports them? Or do we ask the uncomfortable question: when a British film triumphs, who exactly is winning?
