Plot: While on board a luxury yacht for a travel assignment, a journalist witnesses a passenger thrown overboard late at night, only to be told that it didn’t happen, as all passengers and crew are accounted for. Despite no one believing her, she continues to look for answers, putting her own life in danger.
Review: If you have ever been to the airport or the beach, you likely have read a novel like The Woman in Cabin 10. A whodunit full of suspects and a lone investigator trying to solve the case, Ruth Ware’s book is one of many contemporary bestsellers being adapted as a feature film. In the case of this Netflix adaptation starring Keira Knightley, the whodunit is set aboard an insanely opulent mega-yacht where an ensemble of the filthy rich are gathered to celebrate one of their own before a murder ruins their plans. Where Kenneth Branagh’s Hercule Poirot films and Rian Johnson’s Knives Out franchise have blended the classic elements of the genre with a modern twist, The Woman in Cabin 10 is a generic tale that is underwhelmingly not mysterious.
The film centers on Laura “Lo” Blacklock (Keira Knightley), an acclaimed reporter who is recovering from the trauma of witnessing the murder of an informant on her most recent story. Her editor (a woefully wasted Gugu Mbatha-Raw) sends her on an easy assignment to chronicle the maiden voyage of an ultra-elite yacht owned by Lord Richard Bullmer (Guy Pearce) and his ill wife Anne (Lisa Loven Kongsli). Lo feels incredibly out of place amongst the one-percenters, including Heidi (Hannah Waddingham) and her husband, Thomas Heatherly (David Morrissey), a pair of aristocrats who fight and drink constantly. There is also tech guru Lars Jensen (Christopher Rygh), influencer Grace (Kaya Scodelario), Adam (Daniel Ings), rock star Danny Tyler (Paul Kaye), and Bullmer’s private physician Robert (Art Malik). There is also a photographer, Ben (David Ajala), who happens to be Lo’s ex. The crew of the yacht is led by Bullmer’s head of security (Amanda Collin) as the ship departs for sea. Early on, Lo encounters a mysterious blonde woman in Cabin 10 (Gitte Witt).
While the film begins by showing how out of place Lo is among the rest of the passengers, it is the late-night shock of seeing the woman in Cabin 10 go overboard that propels the film’s momentum into gear. Immediately, the passengers and crew find that everyone is accounted for and return to normal, but Lo’s journalistic instincts keep her on the hunt. For the next hour of the film, Lo finds clues here and there, and attempts are made on her life as everyone on board thinks she is crazy. Usually, in films like this, the suspects are each looked int,o and past behaviors are brought to light that turn them into suspects or red herrings. In The Woman in Cabin 10, we spend more time with Keira Knightley proclaiming she saw something, and everyone else dismissing her. There are mild accusations thrown, but for the most part, the cast are just decoration to advance the story. The mystery never really feels like a mystery as the big reveal comes far sooner than you would think. Once the twist is revealed to the audience, The Woman in Cabin 10 becomes something different, which also deviates from the source material.
Clocking in at just barely ninety minutes, The Woman in Cabin 10 sacrifices a lot of what makes movies like this so good. From The Girl on the Train to Gone Girl, the modern mystery novel has evolved into something more nuanced than it was in the past. While Keira Knightley has been exceptional in countless roles in her career, she is not given enough material to make Lo into a character worth caring about. The entire cast of characters here is unlikeable, and we are meant to suspect them all; however, this also distances us from caring about what happens to any of them. Series like Yellowstone and Succession have made it enjoyable to root for the rich characters to misbehave, knowing they will get what is coming to them. But those series also have the benefit of developing across multiple episodes and seasons. The Woman in Cabin 10 forces us to dislike these people and somehow like them within an hour and a half, and it fails to do so.
Ruth Ware fans will also be in for a surprise as they discover that the ending of The Woman in Cabin 10 has been altered from the source material. While this is not uncommon when adapting books, the more layered character development from the book, which gave readers a lot more to explore about Lo, would not have worked on screen. Writers Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse, along with director Simon Stone, have altered the entire third act of the story, which works better in a visual medium but lacks the same emotional impact as the book. Simon Stone, who directed the excellent 2021 film The Dig starring Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes, filmed The Woman in Cabin 10 on board an actual megayacht which lends the fiilm a claustrophobic and isolated feel that enhances the tension of the movie, but fails to draw you into the divide between the rogue’s gallery of billionaires and the lone reporter who knows the truth.
Despite a great cast, The Woman in Cabin 10 fails to capitalize on the talent involved. No one is given much to do other than Keira Knightley, and she is relegated to wandering the yacht paranoid and wondering why no one believes her. Had the script delved deeper into the PTSD that Lo is suffering from, or even created more engaging suspects, The Woman in Cabin 10 could have at least been a fun cinematic page-turner. Instead, this movie is lifeless and monotonous, somehow making murder seem boring. There is absolutely nothing wrong with pulpy or popular fiction. Still, there is something wrong with weak adaptations that don’t capitalize on the elements that made the source material a bestseller. The Woman in Cabin 10 is a wasted opportunity.
The Woman in Cabin 10 is now streaming on Netflix.
Source:
JoBlo.com
