There is an ever-burgeoning genre in the world of film and TV: that which can be ascribed to something like a “rest home caper.” From Book Club to Poms to Queen Bees to A Man on the Inside, the growing genre isn’t without its merit. However, apart from A Man on the Inside, there has yet to be a truly standout offering within this category in recent years. The Thursday Murder Club proves no exception to the rule. And, like most movies (whether Netflix or otherwise), it is adapted from a novel of the same name. Though one imagines the book’s author, Richard Osman, didn’t quite have this in mind when envisioning the translation of his work from the page to the screen (but then, he likely never suspected that Netflix and co. would come knocking on his door at all, so why not just take it as a blessing, no matter how the final product turned out?).
Of course, to cushion the blow of the, shall we say, “wonky” execution, there is the cast: Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsley and Celia Imrie. A veritable who’s who of British heavy hitters of “a certain generation.” But it’s Imrie who has the most experience with this genre, having previously appeared in Calendar Girls and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (along with its sequel). Alas, her “experience” with this kind of material does little to spare it from being a hatchet job. Regardless of Steven Spielberg being a producer on the project via Amblin Entertainment. And yes, one imagines that it was Spielberg’s long-standing relationship with writer-director Chris Columbus that landed him the gig, replacing Ol Parker as director. Yet it is Parker who has more adjacent experience with the “rest home caper” genre, with The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again all under his belt. No matter, apparently. The production went on with Katy Brand and Suzanne Heathcote taking over the screenwriting process and, in so doing, trimming away here and there at the book’s original structure, which often features diary entries from Joyce (Imrie), the retired nurse that Elizabeth (Mirren), Ron (Brosnan) and Ibrahim (Kingsley) invite into their club to help them with a particular “humdinger” of a case involving a woman named Angela Hughes, whose murder ultimately went unsolved in 1973—indeed, the Thursday Murder Club specializes only in cold cases.
Cold cases that require a sharp mind to solve. So it is that, by bringing Joyce into their group, she quickly learns two things: 1) part of the reason she’s been enlisted is to replace Penny Gray, a former detective inspector recently transferred to hospice care and 2) because of Penny’s former profession, they have access to these types of files that would otherwise be confidential. In the book, Joyce acknowledges these two points as follows: “I suppose there had been a vacancy, and I was the new Penny… Penny had been an inspector in the Kent Police for many years, and she would bring along the files of unsolved murder cases. She wasn’t really supposed to have the files, but who was to know? After a certain age, you can pretty much do whatever takes your fancy.”
To that point, when you get right down to it, that is what this genre is all about—reminding people that the elderly aren’t to be underestimated or written off. For to do so is often at one’s own peril. And yes, it’s also a “gentle” nudge for those audiences outside the demographic it’s aimed for to remember that they, too, will “be there” someday. Albeit probably not in a place as tony as Coopers Chase, which also happens to be one of the linchpins to solving this seemingly quagmiric mystery. One that all goes back to the murder of Hughes.
However, it isn’t Penny who brought this cold case to the TMC’s attention, which should be the first red flag to viewers. Instead, it’s Elizabeth who fished it from the proverbial wreckage, curious at how a woman could have died from a stab wound in that particular part of her body so quickly—this stabbing done before being thrown out of a window. And thrown out of it just as Hughes’ boyfriend, Peter Mercer (Will Stevens), happened to be walking home from the pub, seeing a masked man run away from the scene of the crime. It is from this very moment, the outset of the movie, that the believability factor, combined with the acting delivery, is made apparent in its badness by how “la-di-da” this Peter character is about chasing after his girlfriend’s presumed aggressor, barely bothering to walk after him, let alone run as he shouts, just once, “Stop!” But, of course, after about another two hours of circuitous attempts at offering “red herrings” (in the spirit of Agatha Christie, which the book version of The Thursday Murder Club had intended), the viewer is at last shown, in an extremely dry iteration of how Mystery Incorporated (a.k.a. Scooby and the gang) unveils their findings, who the true killer is. And, in truth, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! actually does offer more sense (and entertainment) in terms of the final results of their cases.
With The Thursday Murder Club, it’s obvious that the tone and wit of the book dissipated in the translation, making the way in which the case unfolds less of a “joy” and more of a grin-and-bear-it fest. And no, even the presence of some younger British heavy hitters, like David Tennant and, increasingly, Naomi Ackie, can’t do much to alleviate the core problem of the movie: it insults the intelligence of its intended audience with its hyper-saccharine nature. To be sure, Chris Columbus does tend to be responsible for making these types of movies (e.g., Gremlins and The Goonies). However, in the past, the final result has been far more, let’s say, “aware of itself” (see also: Mrs. Doubtfire, the obviously far better collaboration between Columbus and Brosnan).
Whereas, with The Thursday Murder Club, it’s clear that Columbus feels there is an “elevated” aura to it…and surely, in part, because of the “Spielberg cachet.” What’s more, Spielberg, too, is well-known for being a champion of the saccharine. But, like Columbus, he has had much better luck in the past with carrying it off than he does here, where the mantra of everyone involved seems to be, “Just an entire vat of sugar makes the medicine go down” (even if you might almost immediately yak it up right after).
That medicine, in this scenario, being the notion that—gasp!—the elderly can have a life after “a certain age.” Can still use their bodies and, even more importantly, their minds to great effect. Often to greater effect than those younger than they are. Just not when it comes to this particular adaptation of a book.
Genna Rivieccio
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