by John Tillyard, Contributing Writer
Based on the Ruth Ware novel of the same name, The Woman in Cabin 10 follows reporter Laura Blacklock (Keira Knightley) as she boards a private yacht bound for a dinner in Norway. There, businessman Richard Bullmer (Guy Pearce) plans to announce a large charity donation he and his wife Anne (Lisa Loven Kongsli) plan to make. While at sea, she witnesses someone falling overboard; however, once everyone on board is accounted for, no one believes her story. Is Laura going mad? Or is something deeper and more sinister occurring on board this yacht?
So this is yet another whodunit, set in the confined space of a yacht with a pretty solid cast of various characters. The story sets up a clear, eat-the-rich vibe, with the main character being a workaholic who finds themselves on a private yacht being served champagne. and other passengers questioning her “dress code.” This air of snobbery and indifference towards those less fortunate than they are makes their reaction to Laura’s claims later that someone has gone overboard more believable. They consider her beneath them, and cannot bring themselves to care about the possibility that someone might be freezing to death in the water.
The problem is that it sets a highly dull and disinterested tone to the whole experience. There is a good cast, but no one is given enough to work with to make the characters compelling or memorable. Every character’s delivery is as matter-of-fact as you can imagine, and no one has anything meaningful to say. There is minimal backstory to most of the characters, and most exist simply to be suspects. Even Laura’s character development doesn’t stretch much beyond being a journalist. Most of the others have a single character trait that screams you are supposed to dislike them.
Meanwhile, in the middle of all this is a character who is terminally ill and giving away their money, instantly telling you to be sympathetic to them. Typically, murder mystery stories have a vibrant cast of characters with interesting traits or quirky bits of dialogue to help you remember them. This story has none of that; the only side character remotely memorable is Heidi (Hannah Waddingham), because her character has such a highbrow attitude.
I’ve never liked the trope of no one believing the main character in these stories. It never makes sense to me that they would not accept their story. Are they suggesting that the main character is lying, that they are not of sound mind, or that they are seeing things? Even if you can accept that what they are saying doesn’t make sense, in this case, a person going overboard when no one on board is missing, they wouldn’t make something up for no reason. But of course, the main character must always be the lone wolf. Uncovering the mystery isn’t enough; they must do it by themselves and against the resistance of those convinced there is no mystery to solve. In this story, it seems unlikely that anyone other than Laura saw anything. With it being the middle of the night, the lack of concern from the sleeping passengers is somewhat understandable, but the crew’s dismissal of Laura’s testimony comes across as dismissive. There is an even dumber sequence later where Laura’s life is in danger, and the other passengers pass it off as her attempting suicide, which, based on what the passengers see of what happens to her, is a conclusion that makes no sense at all.
Like the characters, the visuals are similarly tiresome. The yacht’s interior is entirely made of grey and black walls, and the exterior shots are mostly washed-out angles of an overcast grayish North Sea. A few interesting shots convey Laura’s thoughts as she attempts to assemble the pieces internally. But outside of that, there is little about the visuals to grab your attention.
In the second half, the tone shifts to something more akin to a horror or psychological thriller. There is one part where a character attempts to sneak into somewhere, and the drama of the situation is massively overplayed. The story hints at the idea of an unreliable narrator, or that nothing is what it seems, as well as a suggestion that Laura may be suffering from PTSD, but it does all this in a half-hearted, out-of-place way.
There also aren’t many real standout performances, since most of the cast has little to no opportunities to show off range or be expressive in what they are saying. There are some good moments of emotion and attention in the final act where Pearce and Knightley finally get to be emotional and give the story a bit more of a real, tense feeling. Before that, the cast looks as bored as most of the audience felt while waiting for something more exciting to happen. Waddingham in particular is massively wasted in a role I don’t feel was right for her. Her fellow former Game of Thrones cast member, Paul Kaye, is also underutilized in a strange, somewhat pointless role. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a stacked cast for a film with such forgettable characters.
This mystery thriller doesn’t have a particularly interesting or clever mystery, and fails to thrill for most of its runtime. Uninteresting characters that think in frustratingly dumb ways and have nothing interesting to say or do make this a tedious experience, which isn’t helped by the lack of anything vibrant to look at. There are a few attempts to dip into other genres, such as horror and action, that briefly make things more interesting. Still, while the murder mystery unfolds, your mind is more likely to wander than compile an idea of who the killer might be. A lack of character development or any significant backstory for why any character is even there in the first place makes the mystery boring and predictable. There are several good moments of subtle visuals, reveals, or tension, that at least save this from being completely worthless; unfortunately, that’s all they are: moments. The rest of this experience is a slog to sit through.
Rating: Low Side of Didn’t Like It
The Woman in Cabin 10 is currently streaming on Netflix
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