The Thursday Murder Club review: Literary treat doesn’t quite translate to screen
I absolutely adored Richard Osman‘s 2020 novel The Thursday Murder Club, and I was thrilled when the film adaptation was announced, with no less than Home Alone’s Chris Columbus as director and Steven Spielberg as producer. The film is nice enough, but the book is far superior.
Set in the Kent retirement home of Coopers Chase, the murder mystery follows the titular Thursday Murder Club, a group of pensioners who solve cold cases as a hobby. Elizabeth (Helen Mirren), Joyce (Celia Imrie), Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley) and Ron (Pierce Brosnan) find themselves with an active murder case to solve when one of the owners of Coopers Chase is killed.
The Thursday Murder Club movie is a cosy, charming and easygoing film that is beautiful to look at (why does this retirement home look like Downton Abbey?), perhaps to make up for the fact that it is narratively flimsy and lacking in tension. If you’re after a gripping murder mystery with a jaw-dropping reveal, you’ve come to the wrong place.
Sadly, it pales in comparison to the book, which I recall being much more substantial. The characters had more to them (Ibrahim is very thinly written in the film), and the whodunnit reveals packed more of a punch. I know you can’t put every detail from a novel into a film adaptation, as it would be too long, but it feels like there’s too much missing and what’s left is only surface-level.
Casting Mirren as Elizabeth is the spot-on choice because she IS Elizabeth (or at least her public persona is) and Kingsley was a good pick for Ibrahim (although I wish he had more to do). However, Imrie wasn’t quite ditzy enough to be Joyce, and Brosnan does not look or sound like a working-class geezer and trade unionist. Don’t even get me started on Richard E. Grant as a gangster and David Tennant as a slimy, greedy businessman! They are supported by the likes of Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays and Henry Lloyd-Hughes, but only one who made a genuine impact was Jonathan Pryce as Elizabeth’s husband Stephen.
The Thursday Murder Club is a lovely watch, with gorgeous production design and a solid lead performance from Mirren. However, it’s a classic case of style over substance and feels underwhelming compared to the novel.
On Netflix from Thursday 28th August